Watch Out for Pay Per Click Traps

February 24th, 2012

PPC trap To many people, pay per click is a mysterious method of online marketing. There are many quality guidelines that change often – not to mention that highly competitive campaigns/budgets need constant monitoring. Before you choose a PPC company and invest time and money into paid campaigns, here are some things to look out for:

No detailed reports – Almost anyone can set up an Adwords account and set it on auto pilot to spend a certain budget. That’s just not what we do. One of the most horrifying things I’ve heard is from a client who had a massive pay per click budget, only to get a “report” with keywords and the amount spent on each one. The worst part is that he claimed to not get any good calls from these clicks and continued to blindly spend thousands of dollars a month!

At the least, you should work with someone who is willing to provide detailed analytics with specific information about what was spent, when and what can be done to improve. You’ll also want to dive into keyword data and ask questions about that.

If you feel uncomfortable or have any questions, a reputable company will be more than happy to explain the process to you or even help with a test period to see if the strategy will benefit your company in the long run.

Pay per click landing pages that aren’t relevant – If a PPC company doesn’t explain landing pages to you, this is a big red flag. You should see what your customers will see when they click on your ad. Your business will be more in the loop if you see the type of language and keywords used in the ads. This way, there is no surprise when you see the results and you can work together to see which ads performed better than others and why. On the topic of relevancy, when your customers click on an ad, they should be led to a page that they expected to see. Using broad keywords can be confusing, misleading and lead to a higher bounce rate – which means money wasted on your part because the ad did not deliver what was promised.

Not addressing what happens after customers click – So, your pay per click keywords are receiving clicks. Now what? Is there a strong call to action and are customers taking that action? An experienced PPC company can help you address what customers are doing or are not doing after landing on your ad. Whether you expect a call or a way to get contact information, your paid search campaign is not successful if you’re not getting a good ROI on any “relevant” clicks. This means having a good way to follow up once you get this information and retaining a potential customer that will use your services/products in the future.

If you need help with your campaign and are looking for a Google Adwords qualified company, look no further! Call us today for a free consultation – (323) 340-4010.

Here are some more helpful resources:
- 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Starting With PPC
- Avoid These 5-PPC Pitfalls
- How to Avoid 7 PPC Analysis Pitfalls
- 145 PPC Must-Do’s for 2012

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PPC Landing Pages and Quality Score

November 15th, 2011

Google quality score
Have you heard the recent news about pay per click landing pages and how it affects your Quality Score?

Google recently announced some changes they are making to determining Quality Score. After some previous testing in Latin America, Google liked what they saw. These ad quality improvement updates will start rolling out worldwide.

If you take a look at the image to the left, you can see all the different components that make up Quality Score. Google’s recent update means the quality and relevance of your landing page will play a bigger role in determining your Quality Score.

Why?

Although it seems like a canned response, Google’s goal of these making changes is to “improve user experience.”As businesses try to adapt to these changes, they will also be improving their PPC ads to make it easier to find what they’re looking for. In other words, they’ll be doing things that they should be doing in the first place! This means:

- Having original content that is relevant to the user
- Being clear about the nature of your business, customer interaction and your intention of what to do with visitor information
- Having a fast loading and easy-to-navigate. Pop-ups and pop-unders should be kept to a minimum!

If you need more help with your Quality Score and PPC campaign, here are some helpful “Tips for Success” on how to improve your Adwords results posted by Google. Or you can contact a PPC company that is Google Adwords qualified, like Emarketed, today!

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What to Look for in a PPC Company

October 21st, 2011

Los Angeles PPC companyBefore you hire a PPC company or consultant, you should be comfortable and have a general sense of what you want from paid search. Choosing any type of online marketing for your company means that you are making an investment, so do you research ahead of time. Here are a few factors that you’ll want to look into before choosing someone to handle your pay per click campaigns:

Experience – How long have you been handling paid search campaigns? What type of customers or industries are you familiar with? Are you an Adwords qualified company? These are all important questions to think about. Every industry is different and for many small businesses, the sectors can be competitive. When it comes down to keeping on budget for a price per click on a daily basis, experience counts.

Costs and Budget – Someone who is inexperienced in handling different types of paid search budgets can easily make a mistake. These oversights can add up really quickly and get expensive real fast. That’s why it’s helpful to have a company who is dedicated to monitoring your PPC account throughout the day and ensure that you won’t go over budget. You might have a set amount that you’re willing to go over budget if you’re getting good, relevant clicks/calls. These are all crucial things to discuss with your PPC manager.

Keyword Research – Choosing the right keywords is SO important in PPC campaigns. You can’t just throw around broad and general terms that you might incorporate into your organic campaign. If your keywords aren’t relevant and your ads get a lot of impressions but few clicks, this can decrease your overall quality score. Make sure to ask your PPC manager about optimization and testing for different pay per click landing pages to see which ones works best.

Communication – Don’t be afraid to ask your PPC company about their track record and what can they do to improve your campaigns. Find out if they attend any events or webinars to keep up with the changing industry. Most of all, make sure that they are ready and willing to answer any questions and comments that you have regarding your account. Search budgets can change with a moment’s notice and it’s important to have a company who is on your side.

If you have any questions about pay per click or would like to see if it can help your small business, don’t hesitate to contact us today!

Read more about PPC campaigns with these helpful articles:
25 Tips For Giving Your PPC Campaigns a Boost
Find your audience with the Google Display Network
Google +1 Is Changing the Face of PPC. Are You Ready?

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Google Study: Paid Ads Do NOT Cannabalize Organic SEO Clicks

August 2nd, 2011

Do I have to choose between SEO or PPC?

This has been a popular question that has been highly debated. The theory is that if you choose the same keywords for targeted SEO and PPC campaigns, your efforts will work against each other and you’ll lose out, either in paid or organic search. Cannibalization is the term experts use when SEO and PPC compete against each other… this means wasted time, money and effort – especially when paid search is involved.

Surprisingly, a recent study of 400 campaigns by Google shows that 89% of the traffic generated by paid ads is not replaced by organic clicks. Overall, this means that paid ads did not steal clicks away from organic results in this sample.

Of course, this all depends on your industry and you could see stronger results using SEO and PPC or just one method. If you hear anyone make generalizations about using both methods without analyzing your keywords and business, it’s safe to be on the skeptical side.

For example, if you’re ranking high (or are number one) for a keyword, it probably won’t be helpful to focus your efforts on trying to get to the #1 spot for PPC as well. Instead, the benefit of PPC is that it can give your business better exposure for key words that you’re not ranking so high for organically.

Let us know if you have any questions about whether SEO and/or PPC is right for your business and we’d be happy to help you out!

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SEO and PPC: Confused About Where to Start?

April 22nd, 2011

confusedIf you’re thinking about how to maximize your internet marketing budget by using search engine optimization or pay per click marketing for the first time, the decision can be a confusing one.

Since most people feel that SEO and PPC are two different strategies, they often feel that they can only go with one option. And this is where most people get it wrong – SEO and PPC work best when combined to help you meet a common goal at the end.

But how does it work? If you’re skeptical about using these two services at once, here’s a better way to look at how the two help each other out.

The Groundwork of SEO

When you start with SEO, it’s a permanent asset that will help your website content become more visible to search engines and targeted visitors. It’s best to have a list of desirable keywords that you’re targeting so that you know how to precisely track your progress. Depending on your industry, it may be more difficult to compete with certain terms. While SEO can only do so much to give you an overview of the best keywords to use, PPC can be a powerful tool to narrow down that list.

Pay Per Click Helps Your Optimization Strategy

As we’ve talked about before, broad search terms tend to be the most competitive ones. This usually means that they’re more expensive when it comes to cost per click. Using PPC’s insight on longer tail searches might look at less traffic but it will certainly help you reach more qualified customers who know and want what they’re looking for. Customer preference and search behaviors fluctuate and PPC can also help you see which areas of your business you should focus on promoting. No more wasted effort here!

A Recipe of Success

Establishing a strong SEO reputation by consistently creating unique content will help your site in the long run. This can also improve your website’s quality score and give you better leverage when (and if) you do decide to start with your PPC campaign. A good pay per click landing page = happy customer. In the end, SEO and PPC shouldn’t really been seen as two entirely different strategies, as they work well together to help create a more cohesive marketing goal in the end.

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Google Instant and Long Tail Searches

November 16th, 2010

Since Google Instant launched, there have been concerns that long tail searches won’t be as beneficial to SEO and PPC. Let’s take a look at what is affected and why:

What is ‘Long Tail’?
As this dino-graphic shows, generic keywords are more likely to yield a large volume of general search results. But if you get more descriptive with the keywords you’re searching for, you’re more likely to get specific results and find what you’re looking for. Example: searching “hair salon” versus “kids hair salon in los angeles”.

When you use broad, generic keywords, this means that you’ll have a lot of competition. In the SEO world, this means that it will take a lot of time and effort to be a viable competitor. When it comes to PPC, this means that you’ll have to bid more in order for your ads to show up at the top of corresponding search queries.

When you concentrate on your niche business with long tail keywords, it makes it easier to succeed. Or at least, that was the point until Google Instant came along and “killed” the long tail.

The Google Instant Connection
In addition to making things more complicated for SEO and PPC, some believe that Google Instant is also making searchers more lazy. But is there any substance to these claims? One thing is for sure, Google Instant is changing the impressions game. Did you know that if a user stops typing on a particular keyword and results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds, that counts as an impression even if they start to type again. Boo to slow typers!

Check out this search for “hair salon”. If I’m searched for a salon in LA, why would I type any further? I would simply click on the suggested term.

The argument for paid search is that people would stop bidding for long tail searches since they would benefit more from broad terms, such as this. This means high competition, high prices and more money for Google.

What do you think about Google Instant and how will it affect SEO, and long tail when it comes to paid search?

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5 Pay Per Click Advertising Questions Answered

August 2nd, 2010

Emarketed pay per click advertising PPCAre you interested in learning more about how your business can benefit from a pay per click campaign? Join our PPC manager, Dillon Zachara, as he answers the top 5 questions about pay per click advertising.

1) What are some advantages of having an agency manage your PPC campaign rather than doing it yourself?

One, search agency’s have already gone through the process of finding certified professionals that have the skills to optimize and manage a PPC campaign in a way that will maximize business opportunities. An agency also has dedicated representatives at the major search engines that can be contacted directly and quickly when technical issues arise. Finally, web marketing agency’s generally have more resources and tools for research available than individuals do, leading to a higher quality ad campaign.

2) What are the top misconceptions that people have about PPC?

The top misconception is probably that you can just choose a bunch of keywords, toss them in one ad group and one campaign, write an ad or two, and let it run without tweaking it. While this may seem obvious to some who’ve done work with PPC, it isn’t known or practiced by many newcomers to the trade.

3) Tips for creating effective PPC ads?

Ad copy is incredibly important and often gets overlooked. Always A/B split test ads, having more than one running to test for the optimal copy. Everyone managing a PPC campaign should also look into new developments, such as adding addresses for local ads and sitelinks in ad copy. Also with mobile searches becoming increasingly popular, always add a phone number and enable the click-to-call option. Finally, make sure your landing pages look great, otherwise your money is being wasted on a click that won’t convert.

4) What are some common mistakes inexperienced marketers make regarding PPC?

In general, I would say the most common pitfall is just not checking a campaign enough. I like to look through what is happening both in Adwords and Analytics at least once/day for each campaign. That doesn’t necessarily mean that changes should be made that often, but each time the stats are analyzed, a bit more information is being gathered in order to make the correct change/adjustment when necessary.

That pitfall can go the other way too though, where businesses make way too many changes and don’t allow a campaign to find it’s ‘sweet spot’. PPC is all about finding the right balance between keywords, bids, ad copy, running times, and geo-targets. If you make a change and then undo it after only 20 clicks or so, you’re not letting the affects of that change be realized.

5) Favorite and least favorite aspects of PPC?

My favorite aspect of PPC is the amount of control and flexibility you can have over what is happening within the campaign. I love being able to change who sees any particular ad in a matter of minutes. Close after that, my next favorite aspect is the detail and specificity that you can get with reports in PPC campaigns. I also really enjoy monitoring the constant upgrades and changes in the industry. Right now is really an exciting time for PPC search advertising!

My least favorite aspect would probably be the fact that you can’t physically see who is clicking on an ad. Obviously this won’t be changing anytime soon, but the lack of personal interaction can be a little frustrating.

Learn more about how PPC consultants can help your business today. Dillon will be more than happy to answer some of your  burning questions, so feel free to ask!

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Intel’s Advertising Overhaul

March 30th, 2010


Listened in to a webinar this morning with Corey Carrillo of Intel Corporation and Craig Macdonald of Covario about Paid Search and Big Brand Marketing: How Intel Coordinated Search Into a Global Ad Campaign. Most of the time, I find that big corporate presentations are kind of dry because they only cover really general topics and give broad details.

Anyways, Corey admits that Intel is lacking in their brand power presence when compared to Dell or HP. They began an overhaul of their advertising campaign which portrayed their engineers as “rock stars”. Across video, online, email and other advertising platforms, Intel used the same format with familiar characters. This gave their new image a consistency. I personally like these new ads and how consumers can relate.

Consumers seemed to enjoy these ads and found them entertaining. BUT… when directed to the landing page, customers quickly bounced. Like we’ve talked about before, this landing page looked really cool and was flash based. From the consumer point of view, it was too slow loading and they weren’t finding what they were looking for. After a simpler revamp, Intel’s ad campaign improved. They tested, measured and learned from their mistakes and it’s something we all can learn from.

As Corey reminds us the 3 most important things he considers when it comes to a paid search campaign:

  1. keyword selection
  2. ad creative used
  3. landing page

Lesson learned: Integrating your SEO and PPC campaigns are easier said than done, especially for big corporations.

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Search Marketing During a Recession

October 16th, 2009


Think Positive

What should you do when it comes to your search marketing efforts during a recession? Many marketers believe that search marketing is somewhat recession-proof, but it pays to do your own research. It may be too soon to tell, so it doesn’t hurt to do some analysis. First, talk to your peers and ask them how business is going. You can learn a lot from their personal experiences and networking is always a big plus. Keeping up with the latest news means that you won’t get left behind during the next economic upturn. Things may look slow in the meanwhile, but don’t be easily discourage. Innovations like Google Wave or advances in mobile search marketing thrive during times like these!

Recession Dos

Invest: Whether it is time or money, experts suggest that a recession is a time to invest more into search marketing efforts. Why? Competitors may significantly cut back on their expenditures, so that leaves room for you to take advantage of an open market.
Think “Free”: Take advantage of free help that can come from link building and social networking. These efforts take more time than money and will improve the results that you’ll see in the long-run. You can also take time to give your website that much needed makeover.
Organize: Regardless of the economic conditions, a well-organized business always runs more efficiently. Keeping track of what you cut-back on or increase will help you easily make changes and see results.

Recession Don’ts

Don’t carry on as normal but don’t be afraid. Does that make sense? It is foolish to think that the recession doesn’t have some impact on a part of your business. Disregarding external factors is not beneficial and you won’t learn anything new. The worst thing that a business can do is to cut costs in blind fear. If you cut back or eliminate new content and a paid advertising campaign, why would you be surprised if your business suffers? It’s time think smarter and you can take these tips with you as you move ahead.

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