Archive for the ‘Basic PPC Strategies’ Category

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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’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 …
  

One of the best aspects of managing a pay-per-click campaign is the completeness of data. It is the only advertising medium that can give you a fairly accurate representation of how many eyeballs see your ad, and it’s the only advertising medium that can regularly associate a user behavior with an advertising placement.

But with all of the data that’s available to an account manager, how can you determine what to look at, and which metrics truly matter? Here’s a simple …