By Damian Burke on 2009/01/09
Introduction to Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Using the Internet to advertise your business is not only one of the cheaper ways to reach a vast, yet targeted audience, but it's rapidly becoming regarded as the most important way to represent your brand.
Be it a global conglomerate of industrial investment banks or a neighbourhood dog walking business, Pay Per Click advertising, or PPC, as it is commonly referred to, can be mastered from skyscrapers of big city centres or kitchen tables in the leafy suburbs.
An Introduction to the World of PPC Advertising
Keywords
Keywords, key terms and key phrases all describe the handful of words which represent your brand and the first thing to think about on your PPC crusade.
Researching keywords is an important step in the PPC process and will guide the campaign to success. But don't worry; if you don't get it right the first time, you can always tweak them to avoid stagnation.
While you'll need to keep your keywords or phrases as relevant as possible, some terms and phrases are extremely popular with international advertisers and you may need to think of a unique or distinguishing edge.
For competitive terms, you may want to look at your 'long tail' options. This entails targeting more specialised, niche phrasing which may not receive as many search requests, but will garner more conversions per click due to its specificity.
For example; if you're advertising your B&B in Camps Bay, the term "Cape Town Self-Catering Accommodation" will be a competitive stream in which to swim, but using the terms "Camps Bay Bed & Breakfast Accommodation", you'll have a better chance of clicks from users looking in Camps Bay particularly, while saving money on clicks which did not convert and not having to pay for highly competitive terms.
PPC Copywriting
To ensure that your adverts receive the clicks they deserve, it's important to write emotive copy which will entice the user to follow the path to your website - and all within a handful of words.
The structure for a typical PPC ad is:
PPC Heading
Two lines of copy to be displayed on one line.
Or split between two lines.
www.yourURL.com
Quality Score
Quality Score is the rating variable which is calculated on the relevancy and relationship between ad copy, landing page (or entry point into your site) copy and your advertising history.
This score affects the ranking and placement of your ad - the better the score the more relevant the search engine deems your advert to the search query and the higher it will be displayed, while it also lowers your minimum bids for keywords.
Cost Per Click
By selecting the maximum cost per click, you can control your daily budget to ensure that your campaign does not end up running up an excessive bill.
There's no need to feel intimidated; the PPC industry is designed like many other online marketing platforms in that it is made accessible to both global business giants and neighbourhood businesses alike.
PPC Glossary
Here's a glossary of terms to ease you in:
- AdCenter: PPC Platform of Microsoft's search engine, MSN.
- AdWords: The search engine giant Google's PPC system.
- Conversion Rate: The rate of converted goals against number of clicks.
- Cost per Click: The cost paid by the advertiser when the ad is clicked.
- Cost per Mil (1000): The amount paid every 1000 impressions.
- Impression: An advert on display.
- Key Words and Phrases: A tactical word or phrase relevant to your campaign.
- Pay for Inclusion: To pay a search engine to be included in indexing and results.
- Ranking: The placing on the search engine results page.
- ROI: Return on investment.
- SERP: Search engine results page.
- Sponsored Results: Paid advertising category in search engine results.
- Yahoo! Search Marketing: The PPC platform of Yahoo!.
There are varying degrees of display relevancy, which differs between search engines. Google's relevancy categories include the options for broad, phrase, exact and negative matches.
There are various resources available online that will teach you more about PPC and how to use it to enhance your eMarketing initiatives.
eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing
Quirk eMarketing in Cape Town, South Africa, offers a full range of online marketing services. With many international PPC clients and years of experience, Quirk wrote the book on eMarketing, literally. Free to download, eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing edition two contains a comprehensive chapter on PPC that is easy to digest and will get you started.
