Getting the Most Out of Pay Per Click Advertising Campaigns

The success stories surrounding Google's AdWords, the largest pay per click network, are all over the Internet. The struggling small home based business launches an AdWords pay per click marketing campaign and within hours it is inundated with new customers and sales multiply within days. The tiny regional retailer initiates an AdWords campaign and immediately begins to receive orders from all over the world. Although AdWords success stories occur every day, it is important for pay per click advertising novices to understand the basic techniques to make a pay per click advertising campaign successful and cost effective.

Use Very Targeted Keywords

Most novice pay per click advertisers will use very broad keywords. This is a big mistake. Instead, advertisers should use extremely targeted keywords in their pay per click campaigns. The reason for this is twofold. First, the more targeted keywords are generally cheaper. Second, targeted keywords give the potential customer exactly what he is looking for.

Consider a business that sells dog supplies. Each click in a pay per click campaign for the search term "dog supplies" will cost the company about $3.00. Alternately, each click for the search term "dog brush" will cost only $1.50 because there is less competition among advertisers for this search term. The advertiser can get twice as many clicks for the same amount of money. The discrepancy between general and targeted search terms can be even more dramatic in certain circumstances and the advertiser can receive ten to twenty clicks for targeted search terms versus general search term.

Targeted search terms are not only cheaper, but they usually result in better conversion rates. In the example of the dog supply company, a potential customer may be using the search term "dog supplies" when he is looking for companies that sell dog food. If the advertiser sells solely dog grooming supplies then the cost for that click is totally wasted since the advertiser does not even sell the product that the potential customer is looking for. The use of targeted search terms reduces the risk of paying for these types of worthless clicks.

Use Specific and Honest Ad Copy

Specific, honest and direct ad copy about the product, service or website content will usually lead to a much higher conversion rate. Many novice pay per click advertisers try to lure potential customers to click on their ads by contriving catchy ad copy. Even worse, some companies use totally false statements in their pay per click ads. It is always best to be upfront about what the potential customer will see if he clicks on an ad. It is a total waste of advertising dollars to use trickery in pay per click advertising. This method will simply annoy potential customers, decrease the conversion rate and cost the company a small fortune.

Eliminate Underperforming Keywords

The purpose of a pay per click advertising campaign is to increase sales. If a search term is not driving sales and it is just costing money then that keyword should be abandoned. In most instances a keyword that simply drives traffic to a website is not enough. The search term must also lead to sales. There are limitless search terms available. If a particular search term is not generating sales then is must be abandoned.

Link to the Appropriate Web Page

When someone clicks on an ad he has expectation about what he will see. If an ad is about a specific product, he wants to instantly see the information about that product. He does not want to be taken to a home page and be forced to make multiple clicks to find the product he was originally searching for. Conversion rates will be highest for ads that bring potential customers directly to the relevant information.

Conclusion

Pay per click advertising can be an extremely powerful and a cost effective way to find new customers if it is done correctly. Conversely, if a pay per click campaign is put together haphazardly there is the potential for very high costs with little return. In order to have a high conversion rate it is important to make sure that the most cost effective keyword terms are used and that when potential customers click on an ad they find exactly the information that they expected.