Search2Sales

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As good as it gets

As good as it gets 1One question I struggled with for quite a while, and I know most of my clients have as well, is how do you construct and manage an Google Ads account so you know when “this is as good as it gets”? What metrics should you use to manage your account and how do you evaluate those metrics to fine-tune your account performance? At what point do you stop building and experimenting, and start optimizing? At what point is your account essentially on auto-pilot? That’s what this article is about.

There are many different ways to manage account performance and several different levels. The different levels are:

  • Account
  • Campaign
  • Ad group
  • Keyword
  • Search term (a.k.a. search query)

Some examples of how you can manage your bids are:

  • Manual bidding
  • Google’s Enhanced CPC bidding
  • CPA or Google’s Conversion Optimizer

My strategy is based initially on manual bidding at the keyword level, but focusing on search terms, conversions and Analytics data. In many cases, my goal is to get to the point where I can use CPA bidding because this is Google’s “artificial intelligence”. More on that at a later time.

It’s worth noting that many business owners & Google Ads campaign managers can easily be overwhelmed and confused by the sheer number of options for managing an Google Ads campaign. Almost every professional uses a different strategy or tool. When I agree to take on a new client, it’s because I am confident that my strategy will work for the client and we can get to the point where “it’s as good as it gets”, with a relatively simple campaign design and level of effort. But with this important caveat. That the metrics for Conversions and Economics are met. See my post titled PPC Essentials.

In order to appreciate my point of view, you must believe that having an optimized campaign means you are effectively managing probabilities. What is the probability you can convert a particular user if they click on your ad and go to your website? See my article titled A game of chance. In this example, a conversion is defined as an action a first-time visitor to your website from a search engine would take within a 30-day period, where that action is both measurable (using conversion tracking) and a meaningful part of the selling process, like filling out your contact form, calling you on the phone or making a purchase. If you agree, then it’s also important to believe that every user search query (what a Google user types into Google, not to be confused with a keyword) has a unique value to your business, that can be evaluated based on probability theory.

Let me pause for a moment to explain the two fundamental skills I bring to a client relationship: 1) a deep understanding of how Google’s algorithm works and 2) understanding the mindset of a visitor from a search engine, based on their search query. This would be a good time to read my article titled A chain of success so you can appreciate the fact that the user’s search query is the closest we get to knowing what the user is looking for.

The real key to understanding Google’s algorithm, is knowing how keywords and keyword matching options work. Almost anyone I speak with, prospect or client, thinks they know this, but there is so much they don’t know, and that is usually at the core of why they are struggling with Google Ads.

Over the years, Google has evolved their their algorithm for a variety of reasons. Some reasons are to help users, some are to help advertisers and others are so Google can increase their own revenue and profit. An advertiser’s strategy that worked pretty well yesterday, may be losing money tomorrow. It’s all rather fluid. My approach to creating and managing accounts has evolved based on what Google is doing so I fully expect my strategy will continue to evolve over time.

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A game of chance

A game of chance 2Being successful with search engine advertising (PPC or SEO) means you must get a lot of things right or you simply can’t make the numbers work. See my article titled PPC Essentials and pay particular attention to the Economics. One element of this has to do with how your website is designed. I talk about that in my article titled Lost in translation. This article is even more fundamental to having a successful Google Ads campaign. It has to do with what I call the search vocabulary of your market and the importance of selecting the right keywords so your ad displays for the right search terms.

Getting found on search engines using PPC is a lot more involved than most people think, because you are trying to walk a fine line. You want to get the broadest exposure you can, but only have your ad seen by users who you think you have a good chance of converting. See my article titled Who should see your ad. In a perfect world, you would be able to go back in time and only allow prospects to see your ad who will ultimately convert. But we don’t have that luxury. We must make important decisions about who should see your ad, before your ad is displayed.

Allow me to have a small digression to make an important point. SEO is not free, even if the clicks are. SEO, when done correctly, is an on-going, never-ending process that depends on fresh content with lots of quality inbound links. As soon as you stop, you begin a slow slide to becoming irrelevant; out of the top positions, then below the fold, then on the second page and finally out of sight. Therefore, you had better pick your keywords carefully or you can waste a lot of money and time. You need to make sure the keywords you are optimizing for, produce visitors you can convert. Remember, infinity (number of visitors) times no (conversions) is still zero dollars in revenue and profit! I can’t tell you how many prospects and clients I have spoken to that don’t really understand this point. See my article titled PPC versus SEO.

The same principal applies to PPC. You need to be very careful what keywords you chose or you will be paying for a lot of poor quality visitors you can’t convert or you will have some well qualified visitors, but not very many of them. The key is to find the right collection of keywords that are both relevant to your business and have enough search volume to make PPC a viable channel for your business. If you chose very specific keywords, but Google determines there isn’t enough people searching for them, you will get the status Low search volume. See my article titled The keyword conundrum.

If you have little or no previous search engine advertising experience or historical data to work with, finding that collection of relevant keywords with enough search volume, can be time-consuming and expensive. It means you will need to discover these important keywords through research and experimentation. Keyword tools are configured to produce broad-match keywords, which can be very inefficient and expensive if used incorrectly. There is no substitute for an Google Ads account with a rich history of visitor information, including meaningful conversion data.

Over the past few years, Google has introduced several new features designed to decrease their expenses and increase their profits. One of these is the keyword status Low search volume. This means that there aren’t enough searches for that keyword and you need to use a keyword with a broader reach. Unfortunately, that broader reach is also less relevant to your target market. Keep in mind that most search queries are only four words or less. If you have to use up some of those words just to get you into the conversation, it can be very difficult to accurately describe what you offer.

Here is another perspective. You may be able to describe exactly what you offer in 3-4 words, but if there aren’t enough searches for those terms, Google will not show your ad and you will have invested a lot of time, effort and expense planning a party no one will come to. It’s like having a beautiful retail store in the wrong part of town.

Here is an example. Let’s say you are in the business of selling blue widgets. However, when you use the keyword blue widgets, you get the status Low search volume! Now your only option is to use the keyword widgets and try to use other tactics such as qualifying ad copy or negative keywords to minimize the number of poor quality impressions and clicks.

Here is where it can get even more challenging. There is an important distinction between users searching for information and those searching for a product or service to buy! For example, let’s say you are a therapist serving a local market and you want to acquire new patients suffering from depression. If you used keywords such as depression or issues with depression or coping with depression, you will be exposing your ad to lots of users seeking information. And while you may be able to convert some of them into a lead, the probability (chance) of that happening is much lower than someone searching for depression counseling or depression therapist. The words counseling and therapist are indicative of someone who is expecting to spend money!

It’s also important to keep your keywords focused on one theme. Google’s algorithm is highly tuned to one important thing, relevance. If you try to combine multiple topics into a single keyword, you lose focus and relevance. See my article titled A chain of success.

In summary, think of PPC as a game of chance or probability that you have some degree of control over:

  • What is the probability of your keyword getting an impression
  • What is the probability that impression will become a click
  • What is the probability that click will become a lead
  • What is the probability that lead will become a customer
  • What is the lifetime value of that new customer worth

Can you make the number work? That is the question. If that makes sense, take another look at my article titles Who should see your ad and A chain of success.

If you are in a position of wanting to optimize an existing Google Ads campaign with a rich history, including accurate and meaningful conversion tracking data, this also becomes a question of managing probabilities. However, we now have some additional elements that come into play besides the user’s search query. We have Dimensions and Segments such as:

  • Search vs Display networks
  • Whether to use Google search partners
  • Location targeting
  • Time-of-day; day-of-week
  • Type of device
  • Top vs Other

You want to develop and optimize a campaign based on probabilities and these probabilities are based on either your intuition, if you are just starting out or statistically significant historical data collected by users who actually clicked on your ad and went to your website. The latter being the preferred method.

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The ascension model

profit_1Ascension is a term I learned from my mentor Perry Marshall. The root word ascend, is a verb meaning to rise or go up. In this situation it refers to how you, the business owner or advertiser, move customers from lower cost, less profitable products or services to higher cost, more profitable ones. If it isn’t immediately obvious why I suggested you read this post, please continue reading and I think it will become clear.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to review many Google Ads accounts for prospects that are in hyper-competitive markets. Markets where the profit margins are thin, competition is stiff and the products or services could be described as commodities. This is especially true when the business is acting as an online distributor for a relatively inexpensive, branded product using an e-commerce website.

In this scenario, you not only need a highly optimized Google Ads account, but a website and fulfillment process that leaves no room for error. I won’t digress into the topic of conversion optimization because that isn’t the point of this post. But let me get your attention by saying you can have a highly optimized Google Ads campaign, a great landing page with all the right attributes, a great fulfillment process and even a decent conversion rate, and still be significantly out-performed by the competition. And when I use the term “out-performed”, I’m not referring to things like impression share, number of visitors, CTR, conversions or even sales. Those are just leading indicators to your ultimate objective, which is profitability.

I’ve talked with several online marketers over the years, some who have been selling online longer than I have been consulting in the online space, which is over ten years. They began using their website as a way to establish an internet presence, essentially creating an online brochure. Then they began implementing e-commerce and optimizing their website for the purpose of SEO, SEO being the first form of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Then as the internet became mainstream and in many cases being the medium of choice, they began using PPC to increase exposure and ramp-up faster than they could respond with SEO.

However, these advertisers didn’t understand that PPC is quite different from SEO. See my article titled PPC vs SEO. They didn’t understanding The PPC cost model. That’s because SEO works well for products and services where the traffic is high and conversion rates are relatively low, where a lot of shopping takes place. On the other hand, this is a formula for disaster with PPC, unless you have an ascension business model where you can afford to just break-even or perhaps even lose money on the initial sale. Where you have a longer-term view than a single sale and take into account the lifetime value of a customer.

The classic business model for this is known as the Gillette theory, where you escentially give away the razor because you actually make your profit on razorblades. Another example is the car dealership industry. Many car dealers actually lose money on the sale of a new vehicle because they make it up with profits from their service business over the life of the customer relationship.

Now let me move on to the point which is the purpose of this article. If you are promoting a product or services using PPC and you have done a good job optimizing your Google Ads campaign, landing page, website and fine-tuned your offer, and still struggle to make an acceptable profit, ask yourself the following question. “Do I have an ascension model?”. “Does my competition have an ascension model?” Because if you don’t and your competitor does, PPC may not be a viable channel to promote your business.

I make this claim realizing that there is a good chance there is still room for improving your Google Ads account and website. However, I’ve seen too many accounts where the advertiser was beating their head against the wall or lambasting their PPC account manager, thinking the solution to their Google Ads ROI problem was simply making some feature or function change in Google Ads. They were simply barking up the wrong tree.

When a PPC advertiser has a viable ascension business model, they can afford to drive the bid price up to the point where it becomes unprofitable for competitors who need to make a profit on every sale. It makes PPC an unprofitable channel for the single-sale advertiser. This is why it’s important to study your PPC competitors as part of your online advertising strategy.

Often times what I conclude from analyzing a client’s PPC account and the competitive landscape, is that a hybrid model is possible. Meaning the client can only afford to advertise certain products. The products or services that have enough profit in them to make the numbers work. A variation on this strategy is to only bid on those keywords where the competition isn’t as strong and the CPC is lower. This means they can only afford to go after prospects that are earlier in the sales cycle by using generic keywords verses those that are indicative of someone ready to buy.

The key to making all this work is to have a good handle on your key metrics. In particular, your cost per conversion. If you don’t have accurate and reliable conversion tracking and web analytics data to work with, you have an even bigger problem on your hands!

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The keyword conundrum

In this post I’ll be discussing the following topics:

  • The evolution of keyword advertising,
  • The relationship between search queries, keywords, ad copy and landing pages
  • Optomizing keywords for maximum ROI
  • Myths about keyword tools

The evolution of keyword advertising

Gone are the days when you could load hundreds, even thousands of keywords into a campaign and allow them to sit idle, waiting for that rare instance when that unique group of words appeared as a user’s search query. Those were the days before Google went public and became accountable to Wall Street. You see, those keywords consumed valuable hard-drive and CPU resources.

But perhaps more important is the realization that back then, it was all about aquiring new advertisers and making Google Ads as easy to use as possible. Today at Google, it’s about cutting costs and increasing profits. How can Google force more advertisers to compete for those precious “top spots”, let alone the first page of search results!

The harsh reality of search engine advertising is that you must know what your prospects are searching for, the search vocabulary of your market and how it relates to what you offer. For example, if you describe your product as “tissues” and prospects are searching for “Kleenex”, you won’t be successful with search engine advertising! Also, you may offer the greatest product or service every conceived, but if no one is searching for it, you won’t be successful.

As advertisers, we can’t control what prospects search for. We can only try to influence what they see when they perform a search. It does little good to optimize your website or build an Google Ads campaign for terms prospects don’t use or don’t use often enough. Therefore, our first task is to identify what users search for, how often and then match that to what you want to promote. Creating a successful campaign requires research, testing and adjusting or as I refer to as, fine-tuning. How all that actually gets done is not trivial.

The relationship between search queries, keywords, ad copy and landing pages

In a perfect world, the words you use to describe your product or service are exactly what prospects would be searching for. Your landing pages and website would be optimized for those terms and you would structure the visitor experience to accommodate prospects who were delivered to your website from your Google Ads ad, based on the search query they used. As you know, that isn’t always the case, but the reality is, that is what Google demands if you are playing by their rules. Therefore, don’t be surprised if I suggest changes to your website to comply with this reality.

If you had the benefit of hindsight, you would first perform the necessary research to know how prospects searched for your product or service, the search vocabulary of your market. Then you would describe your product or service using those words and then you would build your ad groups, ad copy, landing pages and website all around those words.

Unfortunately, what usually happens is just the opposite. You build your website and then you decide to use search engine marketing (Google Ads) to advertise your product or service. It’s then you discover that one or more of the following occurs:

  • The most popular search queries, keywords and ad groups don’t align very well with your landing pages or website design.
  • Google’s quality score algorithm gives you a low grade for “landing page or ad copy relevance” and your CPC is higher than you like.
  • Your Impression Share is lower than you like because your CTR and quality score are low.
  • Your conversion rate is not as good as it could be because you don’t talk about what the prospect was searching for.

At this point you have two options, either live with this sub-optimal situation with regard to CPC and conversion rates or do something to improve your landing pages. See the page on my website titled Google Ads optimized website design.

Now that you have an appreciation for the importance of knowing how prospects search for your product or service, it’s time to take that knowledge and mold it into campaigns, ad groups, keywords with appropriate matching-options and relevant ad copy that you carefully split-test to optimize performance.

When I review a prospect’s account for the first time, one characteristic I notice pretty much every time, is that the advertiser does not understand keyword matching options. This is so important and often is the source of considerable waste and missed opportunity. Proper use of keyword matching options separates the novice from the professional.

Keyword matching-options have a lot to do with how you spend your daily budget or how aggressive you want your campaign to be. Broader keywords and matching-options will bring in more visitors, but may not have the best ROI. There will always be more traffic out there than you can afford to buy (clicks), but having the right account design will allow you to control where that fine line is between the who sees your ad and who doesn’t. See my post titled Who should see your ad.

But wait, we’re not finished. It’s time to return to Google’s need to conserve resources and maximize their profits. That’s because even if you have the most comprehensive list of highly relevant keywords, with carefully configured matching options, tied to the best ad copy, you are still at the mercy of the dreaded Low Search Volume keyword status. That’s right, if by the grace of Google’s infinite wisdom, your keyword doesn’t get enough searches, it will not trigger your ad to be displayed, even if a user types that phrase exactly as you defined it.

In that case, the only way to increase (not guarantee) the chance your ad will display for a specific, low-volume keyword, is to use a broader keyword that encompasses the keyword you want. The downside is that you will also be receiving additional impressions and clicks from other search queries you may not want. This is where negative keywords can really help. For some additional insights on the topic of keyword matching options, especially broad-matched keywords, see my article titled Remnant keyword impressions.

The last point I’d like to make is that every search query is a market unto itself. Actually, Google calls every search query an ad auction. If you’d like to have a better understand of how the auction works, watch this great 9-minute video by Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist titled Introduction to the Google Ad Auction. It’s very well done.

Optomizing keywords for maximum ROI

Having a truly optimized Google Ads campaign comes down to ROI. There will always be more traffic available than you can afford to buy so the question becomes, where is that fine line between traffic that consistently produces a good visitor and traffic that doesn’t? This is a judgment call. Making the right call requires knowledge of the market, your product or service, how Google’s algorithm works and some knowledge of statistics.

In the beginning, I will usually give the client the opportunity to make some decisions and they usually error on the side of receiving more traffic. However, after we have gathered enough statistically significant data, I will make decisions regarding keywords, matching options and negative keywords based on what I believe will deliver the best ROI for the client. Of course, you have the final say.

Myths regarding keyword tools

  • Don’t be fooled into thinking that if you only knew what keywords and ad copy your competitors used, you hold the key to success. There are many important unknown elements such as; keyword matching options, negative keywords, landing pages, offers, visitor experience and much more. There is no substitute for actual conversion data in your account based on prospects that have seen your ad, visited your landing page and taken your offer and converted!
  • While keyword tools can be helpful, they only provide estimates for broad phrases of what everyone searches for. The data in your server logs or your search query reports only tell you what people who clicked on your ad searched for. Conversion tracking data tells you which of those visitors actually took action.
  • Having the best set of keywords will only allow a prospect see your ad. Having the best ad copy only allows the prospect to see your landing page. Once a prospect reaches your web site, the website must do the selling! It must convince the visitor to take the action you want, whether that means filling out a form, sending a message, calling you on the phone or perhaps making a purchase. By limiting your selling to the written word, you lose 93% of your communications muscle. You give up body language, touch and gesture, facial expressions, and tone of voice. And that leaves you with only the meaning of the words themselves, which is 7% of the impact of a full human communication.

In summary, having a successful campaign requires meticulous research, a deep understanding of Google’s algorithm, creative ad copy, a relevant, compelling landing page and a commitment to the fine-tuning process. Nobody ever gets it exactly right when a campaign is first launched and markets are always changing. Google’s policies and algorithm change, competitors come and go, and most advertisers regularly manipulate their bids.

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The A.I.D.A. formula for landing page design

aida_120x120_2The goal of any online, direct-marketing campaign is to get a qualified prospect to your website and then have them take the action or actions you want. How you get only the best qualified visitors to see and click on your ad is what your Google Ads campaign does. What convinces the visitor to take the action you want, is the job of your website, but mostly your landing page.

Google Ads is about what happens before the click and landing page design is about what happens after the click. Both are equally important if you are to have a successful campaign. Traffic and conversions are 2/3 of the tactical triangle I talk about in my post titled PPC essentials.

Have you ever heard the saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink”? Well, even a “perfect” Google Ads campaign cannot convince the visitor to take action! Yet most advertisers I work with judge the success of their Google Ads campaign based on visitors taking action!

How you design your landing page to improve Google’s quality score, is the topic of my article titled Google Ads optimized website design. The importance of and reasons for having landing pages specifically designed for visitors from search engines, is the topic of my article titled Landing page optimization. The purpose of this article is to help you design custom landing pages so they encourage visitors from search to stay on your website longer and take the actions you want.

Most advertisers I work with, from very small start-ups to large corporations, simply take for granted that their website and landing pages:

  • are not a major factor in determining the success of their Google Ads campaign,
  • do not need to be customized for visitors from search,
  • do not need to be customized based on what the visitor was searching for.

This is because they don’t understand how Google Ads works and the mindset of visitors from search engines.

When it comes to visitors from search engines, you need to assume they know nothing about you, your product or your business, and therefore, it’s important to realize, they are essentially “surfing the web”, perhaps not knowing exactly what they are looking for and maybe not totally focused on what they are doing.

Visitors from search do not read web pages, they scan them. So we need a way to quickly capture their attention and then pull them through a process that causes them to take the actions you want. How we do that, is captured in the formula known as A.I.D.A., which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Visitors from search engines have very little patience. From the time they click on your ad and hit your landing page, you have 3-5 seconds to make a connection. If you don’t, they will bounce. Meaning they will leave your website and probably won’t be back! But you will have still paid the price of a click for that visit, which only lasted a few seconds. Therefore, let’s first focus on how to get their Attention.

When users are surfing the web, they are in “scanning mode” so in order to get their attention, we first need to convince them they have come to the right place. We need to convey as much relevant information in as little time as possible. And the way to do that is to have a bold headline, preferably your “h1 tag”, that is the same as:

  • What they searched for,
  • the keyword in your Google Ads ad group and
  • in the headline of your ad copy.

This mostly satisfies the Google bot that’s responsible for determining landing page quality score, that in turn determines what you end up paying per click. But it also sends a powerful message to the visitor that they are probably on the right track.

Next you need to reaffirm this as quickly and efficiently as possible using graphic images. Let’s use my own website and landing page as an example. The most popular and relevant search term for my business is Google Ads consultant. This is my custom landing page that is tailored to that visitor.

I am of the opinion that one of my biggest competitive differentiators is that it’s just me and I’m a real person, so within a split second of hitting my landing page, you see a headline that says “Google Ads consulting”, a photo of me and the Google Ads Partner badge. This fulfills the Attention part of A.I.D.A.

Now I need to generate Interest by conveying more information, but realizing the visitor is still in “scan mode”. So I use short statements, with a lot of open space, that make a bold, relevant statement. The feature I particularly like is called a slider. This is actually a WordPress plug-in. The way it works is I have a short, compelling statement or question in bold type, that is easy to read. If you click on the + symbol or anywhere on the text, it expands with more information. This allows me to have less text on the page, with easy access to more information if the visitor is interested.

Once they click on one of the bullet points (slider), they have gone from being a “visitor” to becoming a prospect. Now it’s time to rely on the small type to create Desire. But it shouldn’t be all hype. It needs to further qualify the prospect and inform them as to what they can expect if they continue further into the website or decide to use my services.

Now it’s time for Action! The action or actions you present are unique to your business and your product or service. In my case, the ultimate action I want is for the prospect to pick up the phone and call me or send me a message using the form on my Contact page. But in most cases, that’s too big of a leap for a visitor from search to take within 30 days. They aren’t ready. I need to build more rapport or establish more credibility. That’s why I present a wealth of information in the form of blog posts like this one, which pull them further into my website and establishes further credibility.

Also notice that when they are at the point of taking action, I remind them of my Google Ads certification and build trust by displaying my Better Business Bureau seal and PayPal verification. In addition, I have a footer containing links to other pages and blog posts that appeal to a wide range of interests and backgrounds.

So there you have it. A real live example of one of the most respected formulas for converting visitors into prospects and convincing them to take Action!

Will the A.I.D.A. formula work on your website? Perhaps, but please don’t expect that it will be a simple task you can delegate or outsource. It’s a process that takes considerable time and testing. The example I used for my own website took me years to design, develop, implement, test and fine-tune before arriving at what I have now. Also, remember, if you decide to ask for my help, I’m not a web developer or a graphics designer. Although I often work with client’s web developers to implement custom landing pages that employ the A.I.D.A. formula.

When would you like to begin?

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Search Network Interruption Marketing

interruption1When it comes to using Google search, meaning Google.com and their search partners, including search engines like AOL.com and ASK.com, Google is focused on one thing, creating the best experience possible so users will prefer their search engine over all others. To accomplish this, they build their algorithms to reward advertisers for one thing, relevance. How relevant is your keyword, ad copy, landing page and website to what the user is searching for? I discuss this in more detail in my article titled A chain of success.

When advertisers play by Google’s rules, meaning they build their Google Ads campaigns and websites according to Google Ads best practices, they are rewarded with things like; higher ad ranking, lower CPCs and more ad exposure. Google calls this Impression Share.

But what if there were relatively few searches for what you offer or if the best keyword for you (personal injury attorney) is extremely expensive? You might feel that if users saw your ad, even when searching for something else, there is a good chance they will be interested? Then what you are trying to do is known as interruption marketing or branding, which is quite different from direct-response search engine advertising, which by the way is the generic definition of Google Ads search.

If that is the case, then what you are trying to accomplish runs completely counter to how Google search (organic or paid) is designed to work and you have some real challenges ahead of you. Just as an aside, interruption marketing is precisely what the Google display network is all about, but that’s a topic for another day. See my post titled Display network advertising.

Let me provide a quick example. You sell car insurance. This is a fiercely competitive market and in order to maintain a Cost-Per-Click you can afford, you want to advertise for related searches that are less costly, but still relevant to car insurance buyers. You know users are searching for a “Chevy Tahoe”, but you hope that when they see your ad for “Great deals on car insurance”, they will click on your ad, go to your website and request a quote for auto insurance. We call that a conversion.

The first step in this process is to create campaigns and optimize them according to Google’s best practices for the terms that you feel are most relevant to what you offer. In the example above, this would be for “car insurance”. This means creating campaigns and fine-tuning them to achieve a sustainable CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) that you want. How you do this is basically how you master Google Ads. When you do this, you will be taking the competition head-on. Not a trivial task for sure. This is basically what I do for clients every day.

Another quick sidebar, whether we are talking about the traditional way of building Google Ads search campaigns or the non-traditional way I’ll be explaining, there is one important common thread. You must have accurate and reliable conversion tracking. Your ability to optimize your campaign will be directly related to how well you link a conversion back to the things you can control; keywords, matching options, ad copy, landing pages and website content. If you can’t do that, you are leaving a lot to chance. You are essentially flying blind and that’s not good.

In order to appreciate what I’m about to explain, you need to understand how Google has evolved over the past few years, since they went public and became accountable to Wall Street. Once they became a public company, they were expected to continually increase revenue and profits. By the way, Google Ads accounts for 95% of Google’s profits. Google needed a way to drive up revenue, meaning click charges, in an equitable way. The method they used was to create a Quality Score. I call it Google’s profit dial because a relatively minor adjustment to the quality score algorithm can generate huge additional profits for Google.

Quality score is the part of Google’s algorithm that determines if your ad gets shown, when, where and how much a click costs you. The quality score has over 100 elements to it and Google is intentionally vague about how it works. It’s their secret sauce.

There simply isn’t any way around it. When it comes to Google search, you are bound by Google’s rules. If you are attempting to trick Google or the user, the best you can hope for is to simply stay in the game and get your ad shown as often as possible to qualified prospects who will be intrigued enough to click on your ad and convert. Staying in the game requires that you achieve a minimum level of performance for quality score, at least a score of 1. Anything higher is even better. A score of 0 and your ad does not see the light of day.

The degree to which you are able to obtain a higher quality score will determine how much impression share you receive and what your minimum bid must be. But there is a delicate balancing act required. You must maintain enough relevance in your ad copy and landing page to achieve minimum levels of quality, while at the same time being clear about what you offer. Relevance will determine how often your ad is displayed. The amount of competition will determine the keyword’s first page bid price and how truthful you are in the ad copy will have a major impact on your conversion rate.

The SNIM plan

Strategy – Display ads to users searching for related products or services, but not what you actually offer. Interrupt their search process with a related offer they can’t refuse. However, your ad must be relevant to what they are searching for.

Objective – Get as much impression share as you can, at the lowest CPC possible, but make sure the user is qualified. Quality score needs to be at least 3 and CTR is not critically important. However, a higher QS and CTR will produce better results.

Tactics

  • With just a few exceptions, the process for building campaigns for Search Network Interruption Marketing (SNIM) will be pretty much the same as it is for the search terms you want to compete head-on for. Meaning the search terms you want to get as close to 100% impression share, the highest quality scores and the best CTRs.
  • For the purpose of SNIM, the more keywords you have, the more exposure you get, and this is a game of exposure, but only at the right price.
  • Conversion tracking or some other similar tool that manages the campaign to CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) targets will significantly reduce the level of on-going effort.
  • Build and test ad groups to achieve the objectives mentioned above. If you plan to test Conversion Optimizer, have at least 30 days of history with as many conversions as possible. The more, the better.

Search terms – Determine what search terms you want your ad to display for. This requires a good understanding of the business, the business model, what is being offered, what makes a good or bad prospect and more. If the person setting up the campaign does not have a good understanding of this, it undermines the entire strategy.

Keywords – Use keywords and matching options that will display your ad for the desired search terms. Use negative keywords to filter poor quality visitors. Longer-tail keywords will produce less competition and higher quality scores, but be aware of what I call The keyword conundrum. Be careful of broad-matched keywords because they will trigger for “synonyms or related searches”. The more broad-matched keywords you can use, the more exposure you will get. Remember, the objective is broad exposure so the more keywords you have, the better.

Ad copy – Ad copy needs to first be relevant to the keyword and secondly be truthful about what the visitor will see when they click through. Use the keyword in the ad copy, preferably the headline and the display URL. Create ads that tell the visitor what they will find when they click on the ad. Be honest. The click does little good if the visitor doesn’t convert. This is a case where all you want is a CTR good enough to keep your ad showing at a good impression share.

Ad groups – Construct ad groups with common themes that link search terms to keywords, keywords to ad copy and ad copy to your custom landing page. Create ad groups around core words or phrases of similar value to the business. This is important because even though conversion optimizer is implemented at the campaign level, you set your CPA at the ad group level.

Campaigns – Create campaigns around groups containing keywords of similar value to your business. Use Google Ads conversion tracking to optimize performance to the desired CPA targets. Campaigns with higher value traffic are worth more and you can afford to pay more for a conversion.

Landing page – use the keyword in the URL, h1 tag, headline and throughout the page.

Monitor the search queries to insure the traffic is relevant. Use negative keywords to filter poor quality traffic.

Things you need to know:

  • The devil is in the details. When this strategy is implemented properly it is a tedious and time-consuming process. There is a lot about what I have described that requires advanced knowledge of Google Ads. This is not an advised course of action for the novice Google Ads advertiser.
  • If you have an existing account that consists of many campaigns, ad groups and keywords, and is generating business, you need to be extremely careful not to do anything that can’t be easily undone or you could jeopardize the business.
  • If you have an existing account that is producing business and you don’t want to go through the time and expense of building and fine-tuning new campaigns, I suggest you simply focus on your search term reports and use negative keywords to filter the obviously poor quality traffic. This is far less costly to do and carries a lot less risk.
  • There are actually many different quality scores associated with your account. However, the only one you can see is associated with an individual keyword. If you have a preponderance of low quality scores, they will have an effect on the campaign where you are striving for higher marks. See my article titled The elephant in Google.
  • The Google Ads Conversion Optimizer is a great tool when used properly. It uses historical conversion data to manipulate bid prices in real-time. However, when the historical data within the campaign indicates very little, if any correlation between the search query and a conversion, it makes it more difficult for CO to “learn” what works and what doesn’t. There is no guarantee CO will produce a better results than what you achieve by bidding manually.

In conclusion, I’d like to recognize that while this practice of SNIM runs counter to the fundamental intent of search advertising and Google Ads, it is a viable advertising strategy and has produced enormous profits for advertisers who have done it successfully. But it is not to be entered into lightly. It will be a constant up-hill battle and you will remain at the mercy of Google and their ever-changing algorithms. Most noticeably, the quality score.

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Major change

change4If you are reading this article you have either made the decision to significantly restructure your Google Ads account or you are seriously considering it.

Chances are, you are doing this because your account suffers from what I call the broad match effect. The purpose of this article is to prepare you for the journey we will be on as we transition from your current account structure to the new one.

Making any change to your Google Ads account involves some degree of risk. Google Ads is an extremely complex and dynamic system. If you allow me to restructure your account, there will be certain risks, but the risk is minimized because we know:

  • what the problem is,
  • what to do about it,
  • what the result will be and
  • what to expect during the transition.

I want to elaborate on this because there will be short-term setbacks and long-term ramifications. You may see some alarming performance data during the transition. Some of this performance data is real and represents actual short-term and long-term higher costs and some of it is not as real, just misleading.

The real part comes two factors; higher CPC associated with more restrictive keyword matching options and from the fact that we will be reestablishing quality scores for keywords and ad copy. Yes, ad copy has a quality score, you just can’t see it like you can for keywords, but it is real and it does have an impact on performance. Finding the balance of ad quality and optimal ad CTR is tricky business and can only be accomplished through testing. In addition, I recommend giving your Max CPC bids a boost in the early going to establish a higher CTR. As you know, the biggest component of keyword quality score is CTR.

Here is a graphic I created to illustrate how keyword matching options effect your CPC, exposure and quality of visitors.

This is a an alarming reality for some advertisers and you should be prepared to spend 50-500% more CPC when you make this Major Chance to your campaign structure!

The part which is not so obvious is your cost per conversion. Because conversion tracking uses a 30-day cookie, cost/conv data for any given keyword on any given day will change based on newly registered conversions. That’s because conversions and transactions get attributed to the date of the click (on your ad), not the date the conversion occurred.

Here is something for you to think about. If you want to know the effect a change you make today has on cost/conv, you need to wait at least sixty days and then look back thirty days. Otherwise you will be dealing with incomplete and misleading data. You need to resist evaluating the new campaign based on short-term data. Also keep in mind that the number of impressions and clicks can vary considerably from day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month. You must be willing to have the necessary confidence, commitment and patience or you should not be doing this.

Depending on your market, conversion tracking data can increase many fold over the life of the cookie, as visitors return to your site (from non-Google Ads links) and convert. I make the distinction, “from non-Google Ads links”, such as a bookmark, organic listing or website referrals, because Google Ads attributes the conversion to the last-clicked ad, keyword and search term, even if the keyword or ad is paused.

I make the point about paused keywords because you will continue to register conversions in your account from keywords in your old campaigns, which may be paused, and you probably won’t be looking at those keywords when we launch the new campaign(s).

The broad-match wild card effect – With all the down-side of using broad-matched keywords, there is one positive aspect worth mentioning, and it can be significant.

The fact is that some search queries can only trigger ads using broad-matched keywords. Unless you have spent considerable time pouring through server logs and search term reports, you probably don’t realize just how many possible unique search queries there are for your broad-matched keywords. It’s essentially unlimited. Some of them are great and some are dogs. The dogs are why you have been racking up all those relatively poor quality impressions and clicks. But notice just how many of those strange ones produced conversions! Chances are that those strange search terms will not trigger your ad with anything other than a broad-matched keyword. If you tried to target that same search query with a more targeted keyword match type, you would almost certainly be given a status of Low search volume.

Here is something else to consider. When you use broad-matched keywords, you become eligible for a very large number of ad auctions. At the time of the ad auction, only a fraction of those eligible, actually get displayed. There are so many dynamic factors at play, that it becomes unpredictable, especially when you have an unusual search query. I call this the broad-match wildcard effect. While you might be very happy that your ad was displayed for a particular search query, it will be impossible to insure that it will be displayed the next time that search query is performed.

While we will try to create keywords and matching options that display your ad for as many relevant search queries as possible, there is only so much we can do. We don’t have complete control over the Google Ads system and it isn’t 100% predictable. Therefore, if we use more restrictive keyword match types, you must be willing to accept the fact that we will not be able to display your ad for every conceivable search query. If your logs indicate that you have received a significant number of conversions from search queries that we cannot reliably link to a keyword in the new design, we should not implement a completely new design. A partial redesign, focusing on a segment of the account or campaign may be in order.

The importance of fine-tuning – Most advertisers can’t appreciate the importance of or the amount of time required to fine-tune a campaign once it’s been launched. No one ever get’s everything right when the campaign is first launched.

When the initial campaign is launched, default bid prices are used, which amount to little more than a guess as to what the bid price should be in order to receive the desired ad ranking for each keyword. It’s simply not practical to research bid prices for a large number of keywords prior to launch. In the beginning it will be necessary for me to monitor and make adjustments at least once a day and then it tails off over time. The amount of time this requires depends on the number of keywords, ad groups and campaigns in your account.

Each keyword is unique and is actually a “market” unto itself. Therefore, until the keyword is actually searched on and your ads receive “clicks”, you can’t be sure where your ad will appear in the ranking or how much you need to bid to obtain the rank that is appropriate. Some keywords are simply much more valuable to you than others. It is an iterative process and the two most important factors are 1) how much traffic your campaign receives and 2) how much time I have to work on it. Some of my clients have made a serious mistake by not allowing me to perform the fine-tuning process once the new campaign is launched or they underestimate the amount of work required to perform this important task.

Before we begin the transition, I recommend that you implement Google Analytics. It offers data you won’t see in Google Ads, such as bounce rate, number of pages per visit, % new visitors and average time on site. These are all valuable pieces of data that help us establish relative values for specific keywords, ad copy and web pages. In addition, you can set up “goals”, which are like conversions. But unlike the Google Ads 30-day cookie, the Google Analytics cookie can last up to two years! This can help give us a more accurate cost/conv.

So let’s review why you might want to incur the additional expense of redesigning your Google Ads account and seemingly subject yourself to the risk.

The characteristics I describe in the broad match effect, implies you don’t have the desired control over what’s going on in your Google Ads account. You aren’t able to control what ad a user sees for any given search query, your ads are being shown for irrelevant searches (unwanted impressions), you are paying for a lot of poor quality visitors and you are spending a lot of time making changes to your account without any real confidence you know what you are doing. You’re doing stuff like; ad copy changes, new keywords, experimenting with keyword matching options, adding a lot of negative keywords and changing bid prices. Probably not the best use of your time.

The answer is, you will get:

  • Better search query to ad copy relevance
    • Higher CTR
    • Higher quality scores
    • Lower CPC
    • Lower cost/conv
  • Fewer unwanted impressions
    • Higher CTR
    • Lower CPC
    • Lower cost/conv
  • Fewer unwanted clicks
    • Lower ad spend
    • Lower cost/conv
  • Easier on-going account maintenance
    • Lower costs
    • Less of your time
    • Better ROI
  • The confidence in knowing what’s actually happening
    • Frees you up to focus on other things
  • The confidence in knowing you are in control
    • Freedom to try new things
    • A happier life 🙂

One final word of caution. You have probably come to the realization that the new account design I discussed is pretty involved. Well, you’re right. Therefore, if you or anyone else make changes to the new campaign, chances are they will do more harm than good. It would be like hiring someone to tune your baby grand piano and then making a few minor adjustments on your own! Not a good idea.

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The broad-match effect

Google Ads_matchingOne of the most important skills of a Google Ads advertiser that separates the expert from the novice, is an acute understanding of keyword matching options. The right use of matching options can make a considerable difference in the complexity, efficiency and performance of any Google Ads account.

Since I’ve been managing Google Ads accounts professionally, I’ve had occasion to work with many advertisers with accounts that have been active for several years, built mostly on broad-matched keywords. This type of account exhibits some rather interesting characteristics that present some unique challenges. When I see an account that exhibits these characteristics, I can be fairly confident that:

  1. The advertiser is displaying their ad for a very wide range of search queries, but not on a consistant basis for any given search query. A classic situation for broad-matched keywords.
  2. Their impression share is relatively low. In other words, their ads are not being shown as often as they could be due to daily budget restrictions or ad ranking.
  3. They are probably spending more than they want or need to spend on click charges.
  4. They are probably seeing “Limited by budget” or very close to seeing it as they are forced to continually raise their daily budget.

The broad-matched keyword is the most powerful, and yet potentially the most dangerous of all the match types. It was designed primarily for the novice advertiser who doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn the finer points of PPC advertising. A few years ago, Google quietly re-introduced the broad-match and gave it even more reach. In some circles, they called it, “extended broad-match”. The extended part had to do with an extension that allowed ads to be shown for synonyms of the keyword.

The ability to trigger ads for synonyms is what gives the broad-match its powerful and potentially dangerous characteristics. If you want to get a sense of how broad the reach is, here are a few suggestions:

  1. Run a search term report on broad-matched keywords in your account. You’ll probably be shocked.
  2. Use the Google Ads keyword tool and make sure to uncheck the “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” box.
  3. Run a keyword-to-search query report in your Google Analytics account.

Most of the time, you are going to find some pretty unexpected search queries and you’ll wish you could get the money back you spent on those poor quality visitors. In many cases, this is where your daily budget has gone.

However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the market niche is so unique that the broad-match works pretty well. And sometimes the advertiser understands the subtle nuances of the broad-match and keeps it in check with a healthy complement of negative keywords. But these are usually exceptions to the rule.

There are additional unintended consequence of the unchecked broad-match:

  1. You are essentially competing with yourself, because you have multiple keywords entering the same auction.
  2. You lose control over which of your ads displays for any given keyword or search query.
  3. You have limited ability to prioritize visitors because the broad-matched keyword can trigger an impression for such a wide range of search queries.

Another characteristic that is common to this situation is to have campaigns that are “Limited by budget”. To see just how much they are limited, run an Impression Share report. This will show how much exposure is lost due to 1) budgeting shortfall and 2) less than optimal keyword ranking, which is essentially your quality score.

“Limited by budget” is a confirmation there is more traffic available than you are able to afford, and when you consider that some of the budget is being consumed by poor quality visitors, clearly there is an issue, because it also means your ad is not being displayed for some of your best prospects.

What you want is a way to minimize your exposure to poor quality users and maximize your exposure to good quality prospects. Furthermore, you want to have enough control so that any given search query displays the best possible ad copy.

In spite of the drawbacks of using broad-matched keywords, there is one positive aspect you need to be aware of as you consider your options. I call it Remnant keyword impressions.

Some search queries can only be triggered by broad-matched keywords. This means that if you are determined to display your ad for as many search queries as possible that might be used by a qualified prospect, you will need to use some broad-matched keywords. To appreciate this, some background is required.

In the old days, before Google went public, you could have almost unlimited keywords in your account, and as long as any given keyword received a minimum CTR of .005 (5 clicks out of 1,000 impressions) Google would display your ad when it matched that keyword. That’s now ancient history.

Today, if you have a keyword that Google determines to have Low search volume, that keyword probably will not display your ad even if someone types that exact search phrase. This has several benefits for Google and one big negative for advertisers. It forces advertisers to compete for a fewer number of keywords, which drives up CPCs, and it gives Google the freedom to display ads that maximize their profit. This is just one example of how Google Ads is evolving. The challenge is that it’s making it more competitive and more costly for advertisers and more profitable for Google.

So what are the options? This is an over-simplification, but to the point:

  1. Freeze the ad spend and live with the status quo. Essentially do nothing.
  2. Increase your daily budget to insure you are maximizing your exposure. Essentially throw more money at the problem.
  3. Have a robust list of negative keywords and be relentless about staying on top of it. But that won’t solve all the problems because it may not be enough to reduce ad spend to an acceptable level and still have all the desired exposure. This also won’t do anything to provide the necessary control that’s required to 1) effectively match keywords to ad copy, 2) match keywords to search queries and 3) prioritize keyword ranking based on their relative value to your business.
  4. Create an account structure that gives you more control over who sees your ad, what keywords trigger which ad and manage how much you spend to display your ad for any given search query.

If you elect to go the route of redesigning your account, here are some things you need to be aware of.

  1. Developing, implementing and fine-tuning a new account design is tedious, time-consuming work. The critical element of the process is keyword research. The secret to proper keyword research is having the right tools and knowing how to use them. How long it takes is a function of many factors, but tends to track with the number of products and services being promoted.
  2. I don’t like having to create new campaigns and running them while the old campaign is still enabled because the old campaign can, and often does, compete and win against the new campaign. But sometimes it can’t be avoided. During the time when both campaigns are running we have relatively poor performance. I prefer a step-by-step approach, where we carve out specific niches and test to insure we are getting the desired results.
  3. There will be short-term setbacks (higher costs) until the new keywords and ads build up their own history, based on critical elements, such as click-through-rate and quality score. This could take 2-3 weeks, during which time you could be paying higher Avg. CPCs. As the quality scores increase and rankings improve, we can begin to reduce the Max CPC. See my article titled The elephant in Google.
  4. The way the existing account is structured will not match up exactly to the new design. There may be times when it’s necessary to turn off larger sections of the existing account in order to bring on new keywords and ad groups. This may result in a temporary loss of exposure to certain search queries. Also, until all elements of the existing campaign are turned off, it can continue to compete with the new campaign, which has inhalant inefficiencies.

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Google Ads campaign development

toolsThe process I use to develop a new campaign when there is account history is one I developed on my own through trial and error. In all the years I’ve been following other industry experts and pundants, no one has ever discussed anything like it. Perhaps because it’s too nuance or too difficult to know when and how to apply it. Nevertheless, I will attempt to explain.

Knowing when to apply these techniques depends on the quantity and quality of account history, specifically search terms, analytics and conversion data. Given my market niche, which is helping those who are already Google Ads advertisers, almost all my clients have some account history. However, in the absence of any historical data, I usually rely on more traditional forms of research, such as keyword tools, relevant searches, competitor’s websites, etc. What many advertisers don’t realize is that a robust account history is like a custom keyword tool specifically designed for them. They just need to know how to use it.

As with any form of advertising, achieving success with Google Ads comes down to optimizing your return on investment. There will always be more traffic than you can afford to buy so optimization is essential. Optimizing your Google Ads account is a process of determining what works, what doesn’t and applying probability theory to whatever lies between. The process I use for determining what works and what doesn’t is based on visitor behavior and what I believe is their intent, based on the user’s search query. Did the visitor take the action you wanted? What was the relative quality of their search query?

The data element I want to focus on is a search term, because a search term is as close as we can get to knowing what the prospect is thinking. Not to be confused with keywords, which are tools for determining what search terms will trigger your ad. If we know what they are thinking, we can either filter that visitor using negative keywords or encourage them with ad copy, custom landing pages and calls to actions. See my article titled A chain of success.

Focusing on search terms and not keywords, and applying probability theory, is what separates the novice Google Ads advertiser from the professional.

The fact is, you simply can’t afford to target every search term that has in the past or might convert in the future. When you consider targeting a search term, you need to consider the probability that you will be able to convert that visitor. Can you convert them 5% of the time or 1% of the time? Where you draw the line should be based on the lifetime value of that visitor. How you determine the lifetime value of a prospect will be different for every advertiser and potentially every search term. If you can convert visitors searching for blue widgets at a rate of 5% and those searching for red widgets 1% of the time, chances are you can’t afford to advertise red widgets using PPC because you can’t make the numbers work. It’s a matter of economics.

In Google Ads, we use conversion tracking, in Analytics it’s bounce rate, number of pages visited and time on page that help you make these important decisions. Google Ads is a very powerful and feature-rich advertising platform, but it has limitations. Prospects are not going to write an essay about what they are looking for and why; they are only going to use 3-4 “core words” in a search query. We have to be able to read between the lines and assign a probability as to whether we can convert them. This is a skill that has taken me years to develop and is a significant factor that has contributed to my success.

Knowing enough about the niche market you are targeting is critical. I go out of my way to tell prospects that I don’t pretend to know their industry, their market, their competition, their product or service. That is why I emphasize that my business model is a collaborative process. The degree to which the client knows their market and can help me understand it, will determine how successful we will be in optimizing their Google Ads account. For example, if I am not aware that you don’t sell red widgets when I’m building a campaign for widgets, then you will be spending money on clicks that you can’t convert and that will be reflected in your ROI.

But it’s not as simple as knowing the search terms that work because Google Ads has limitations when it comes to using keywords. If we try to be too specific with keywords, Google slaps us with the status of “Low search volume”. See my article titled The keyword conundrum. On the other hand, if we use keywords that are too broad, we subject ourselves to a lot of poor quality visitors and dangerously low keyword quality scores. See my article titled The broad-match effect.

The degree to which these challenges are present varies greatly from one campaign to the next. For some, we can achieve an acceptable level of success relatively quickly. For others it is a painstakingly slow and costly process. A lot of it has to do with the number of keywords in play and how easy it is to describe the advertiser’s product or service. The length of time it takes to develop a campaign design also depends on how much historical data exists in the account. If the market is well defined and the search vocabulary is relatively simple, having a robust account history is less importance. On the other hand, if the search vocabulary is more complex and there is relatively little account history, then the advertiser will essentially have to buy the information they need to optimize their campaign through trial and error.

One of the things I try to determine early in a client relationship is how aggressive or conservative they want to be. If they have plenty of margin in their product or want to achieve an optimized campaign sooner rather than later, we can be more aggressive. Most of the time it depends on how committed they are to using Google Ads as an advertising channel. On the other hand, if there is less margin to work with and the advertiser is tentative about using Google Ads, we take a more conservative approach.

There is one caveat that comes with implementing this strategy however. It has to do with the fact that there will be a point of saturation. That means there will be a finite amount of traffic that meets your criteria and the only way to get more traffic is to raise the amount you are willing to pay for a conversion. That is why it’s critical to have accurate, reliable and comprehensive conversion tracking in place. Please refer to my articles titled Conversion tracking and Telephone conversions for more information. If you are not tracking the right actions or you are only tracking a portion of the actual conversions, it will be reflected in your ability to optimize your account.

Another important element of the process is choosing the right keywords and the right keyword matching options, but that’s the topic for another discussion.

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Beyond PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

If you have a basic understanding of Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing and are trying to determine which firm is right for you, or you want to take your PPC campaign to the next level….

then you will appreciate that simply depositing a visitor to your web site’s home page is a great first step, but only scratches the surface in terms of what is possible, especially if your product or service requires building a relationship with your prospect.

So if search engine marketing is something you think you would like to try and you are willing to commit to a minimum level of spending, a simple Google search will produce several firms that will be glad to come up with lots of keywords for you that are guaranteed to bring more visitors to your web site.

However, if you are not careful, they will have little regard for what kind of traffic they produce and very few ideas about what you should do with the traffic once it is deposited on your site. That’s because they are motivated by the number of keywords they come up with or the amount you spend on click charges, and not about what you want, which arequalified sales leads that generate new business.

Here is another important point that you should consider. If you sell a product that could be considered an “impulse buy” or a “one-step sales process”, then simply sending visitors to your site may work for you. However, if you feel you need to develop a relationship with a prospect over time, you will want to have a process that establishes your credibility, builds trust and gives you an opportunity to stay in touch with that prospect as their needs change and their buying cycles revolve.

That is why I have a different approach. I combine the benefits of a well managed Pay-Per-Click campaign with a results-oriented consulting model that looks at marketing as a process that needs to be optimized to achieve a result. And that result is not simply to see how many keywords I can come up with. The result I strive for is generating qualified sales leads, integrating these leads into a sales process and using collateral you probably already have to maintain an on-going relationship so that when your prospect is ready to make a purchase, you are foremost in their mind.

When it comes to optimizing the selling process, PPC offers some unique tools that can significantly reduce the optimizing cycle time. For a more detailed explanation, please visit the page titled PPC Implementation Strategies.

 
Search 2 Sales, LLC, Internet Marketing Services, Dallas, TX

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