Archive for the ‘Basic PPC Strategies’ Category

One thing we do regularly for our clients is run search query reports from Adwords and MSN, pull all queries that are resulting in unqualified impressions or clicks, and add those in as negatives.

Doing this can really help narrow down your keyword list and prevent unqualified traffic from seeing your ad and not clicking – which prevents your impressions from skyrocketing and therefore lowering your click-through rate. But negatives also can prevent people from clicking on your ads, costing you money and lowering your conversion rates.

However, if you’re only relying on the search query reports you’re really only …

Now that the holiday festivities and hangovers are over with, it’s time to determine whether or not you pre-holiday optimization efforts were effective.

So, what questions do you need to ask and what numbers do you need to evaluate?

Impressions
Did your keywords get more impressions than normal during the holidays?  Were those impressions for your standard keywords, or for holiday-specific terms like “christmas sale” or “holiday special?”

Click Through Rate
Since getting more impressions is worthless without being able to drive more traffic to your site as a result, the next question is, “Did your holiday themed ads generate more clicks than the non-holiday …

This is a special guest blog post from Matt Umbro at theppcblog.com.
Any PPC campaign interface provides valuable metrics such as number of clicks on a particular ad or the click-thru-rate (CTR) of a certain keyword, but to solely look as these figures when determining the success of a campaign is a mistake.  To truly realize the value of your PPC campaign you must view your data in accordance with your analytics and determine the value of your conversions.

PPC does …

There’s a continuous debate in the search marketing industry about which is the more effective and efficient use of resources: pay per click or natural search engine optimization.  Obviously, I’ll be supporting the PPC side of this argument.  Our trusty sidekicks over at www.SEOBoy.com can be counted on to back the natural optimization horse in this race, and the good people at Search Engine Watch have provided a good breakdown of both sides of the discussion that took place last week at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009.

Before discussing the benefits of PPC vs. SEO, I must make …

After reading the second half of Ron Jones’s article, Measuring Success, on Search Engine Watch, I was struck with an overwhelming urge to blatantly steal his ideas.  However, my more noble tendencies forced me to merely reference them, while giving him credit for the inspiration.

Mr. Jones’s article discusses the methods for planning and measuring success in SEO efforts using SMART goals:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

These principles can also be applied to PPC campaign optimization.
 

Specific – The tendency for PPC campaigns always seems to be more, more, more.  More clicks, more orders, more revenue…  And, while “more” isn’t an unreasonable goal, it’s an …

There is so much going on within any PPC campaign that it can be difficult to keep track of all the moving pieces. You can be a proactive PPC manager but there could be elements of your account that may be quietly hindering your performance. Actually, when an account is performing well, this is when you need to be most vigilant in searching for these “quiet killers” because they may be harder to notice blatantly.

Incorrect campaign settings

When you create a new campaign, I am sure you check all of your settings to make sure they’re correct. However, if you launch …

As I’m sure you are aware, it’s a new month! Now is the time to kick off your PPC campaigns with a bang. There are a few tasks that you can accomplish quickly in the next day or two that will help improve your performance for the rest for the month.

When optimizing your PPC campaigns, you should always make positive changes all month long. However, you should front-load as many of your tasks toward the beginning of the month as you can. Why? This way, when you make some great changes, your account will feel the effects for the  longest …

You’ve either been trying to manage your company’s PPC account on your own, or you have hired a general marketing person to manage the PPC account internally. Regardless, you know that more could be done to get more bank for your buck. How do you know when it’s time to hire a PPC management firm?

• You know more could be done.
• You have 50 keywords in your entire account.
• You have one or two campaigns total.
• You’re blowing through your budget by noon.
• You perform a search to find your ad, and it’s no where to be found.
• You don’t know what the content network is, …