[Video] Intro. to PPC Marketing Using Google AdWords, Yahoo & Microsoft

This 9 minute and 37 second video offers basic tips for starting with pay per click marketing.

General Tips for Starting With PPC Advertising

  • Start advertising on the major search engines. Google, Yahoo, and MSN give you faster feedback and better traffic quality than smaller search engines typically do. The size and scope of the large ad networks means that the #5 market is going to have almost no clean syndication partners because 60% of Google is more than 90% of smaller networks. Yahoo and MSN often have cheaper clicks than Google due to fewer competitors and less sophisticated price gouging ad quality algorithms.
  • Use different match types. Understand the differences between broad, phrase, and exact match. If you use broad or phrase match, make sure to use search query performance reports to find more keywords you should be advertising on and keywords you should be blocking via negative keywords tools.
  • Should you use ad syndication? Off the start, opt out of contextual ad syndication and test your campaigns via Google search ads, such that you can get a clean signal of click value, ad position, and ad CTR. After you know what it takes to compete in search you may want to re-enable ad syndication. If you enable ad syndication, set it up with its own ad groups or bid differently for contextual ads than you do for search.
  • Track conversion. This will teach you what keywords actually lead to commercial events. Sometimes if you are priced out of common market related keywords you can still find some high value lower search volume keywords that other competitors have not yet found. If you are managing large and complex campaigns you may want to use a third party conversion tracking tool, but if you only sell one product and/or run smaller accounts then you can use the free conversion tracking tools built into the search ad networks.
  • Use PPC to guide SEO. It is cheaper to use keyword research tools and use PPC to find out what terms convert right when you start an SEO campaign than it is to spend months targeting the wrong keywords.
  • A/B split test. Use the built in Google AdWords a/b split test tool to test different ad copy, and use their Website Optimizer tool to test different landing pages.
  • Be relevant. Use tight ad groups and send traffic to a landing page catered toward that basket of keywords. These tips increase ad clickthrough rate, ad quality scores, and conversion rates while lowering cost per click. Set brand related keywords in their own ad group. Dynamic keyword insertion can help improve your perceived ad relevancy by matching the ads up against keywords from the search query. Google's offline AdWords editor can help you create tight ad groups.
  • Set advertising goals. Some advertisers are looking for direct ROI, while others are looking to build their brand while making meager profits. If your brand related keywords are highly profitable, you might want to use those profits to help subsidize the cost of keywords earlier in the sales cycle or keywords that help increase brand awareness. If you have no search advertising experience and no brand awareness you can't be afraid of losing money off the start.
  • Use PPC to build links. If you create linkworthy content and buy the related keywords you can get mainstream media exposure for next to nothing.
  • Learn from the search engines. Google AdWords offers free online training videos which teach you how to use their ad network. One note of caution is that when they talk about Google tools that optimize something, many of those tools optimize eating your ad budget and increasing Google's revenues at your expense.
Published: November 5, 2007 by Aaron Wall in videos

Comments

Patrick
November 5, 2007 - 5:09pm

Hi Aaron,

nice video. I wouldn't mind seeing more stuff about PPC on your blog in the future (seems like Im one of the only ppl though judging by the number of comments ;().

Anyways, I remember an old post where you mentioned this before. I was hoping to see a bit more about this in the video when I read "use PPC to build links".

Maybe you could give an example on how to use PPC to do that? I assume you have to do a PPC campaign that's focussed on the "linkerati" in your niche?

In that old post you mentioned that targetting the key bloggers in your field was an option. I think I do understand the concept, but I'm wondering how you could target bloggers? Say you were to target bloggers in the SEO field. How would you go about targeting them? What would they search for that other people interested in SEO would not search for? Or is it more a matter of making the ad copy appealing to them and not so much a matter of choosing the keywords to target bloggers "new tool you can give away on your blog if you leave the link in it"?:-)

Patrick
November 5, 2007 - 5:12pm

Oh and..when you run a PPC campaign to attract links (and the campaign doesnt hit it as big as in your example in that old blog post) do you sort of calculate ROI by tracking how many links you get and how much you estimate their value to be as opposed to how much youve been spending on getting them through adwords? (sounds like another indirect way of paying for links..lol)

November 5, 2007 - 5:51pm

Hi Patrick
The easiest way to target bloggers would be site targetd ads on their blog.

As far as predicting ROI goes, it is a bit of a crapshoot. But if your ideas are sound and targeted from start to finish you should be able to get some return.

Christen
November 7, 2007 - 10:19am

The information you provide on this site is so valuable and well presented. Thank you! I really enjoy the videos. Am totally new to it all, and though there is a lot to learn, your site is approachable for newbies like me. Chris

November 7, 2007 - 10:55am

Glad to hear that Chris. For a while I was writing stuff that was a bit abstract and futuristic and whatnot, and decided to try to write a bit more accessibly for a while to see how that goes.

Fulcrum04
November 7, 2007 - 2:04pm

Once a campaign is established I believe it is then worth search engine optimising the landing page on the same keywords. This may improve the quality score increasing performance and reducing cost.

November 7, 2007 - 2:08pm

I have to believe there is some overlap between organic and AdWords, but I have also seen some cases where Google changed my 10 cent bid to a $5 minimum when I ranked at the top of their search results for the same query.

Its a funny game though if you have to do SEO to be able to have profit margins on the PPC ads. :)

Fulcrum04
November 7, 2007 - 2:19pm

Reading case studies on the Double-Click website (Google paid 3.1 Billion for them) they appear to be using organic to support PPC improvements. Logically speaking a quality score would draw on the same algorithm as organic - therefore improved performance ...

November 7, 2007 - 8:02pm

Andrew Goodman recently published a great article comparing organic search relevancy to paid search relevancy.

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