10 Tips for Pay-Per-Click Success

This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.

1) Do your keyword homework.

Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.

2) Don't bunch your ad groups.

You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.

3) Drive home your selling point.

What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.

4) Don't send users to your home page.

This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to your Pay-Per-Click campaign. Internet users are notoriously impatient. Send them to your home page when they were searching for a specific product or service and see how fast they leave. Don't waste your advertising budget - send them to optimized landing pages.

5) Optimize your landing pages.

Your landing pages need to drive something home immediately for your users: "you have landed in the right place." They need to know that, yes, this is what they were looking for, here it is, here is why it is better than the rest and here's the easy thing they need to do to get it. In most cases you'll need to create multiple landing pages based on your different ad groups and keywords, but look at it this way - if your users aren't landing at pages geared exactly to their search phrases they'll leave and take your advertising budget with them.

6) Don't lie in your ads.

People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.

7) Your domain name counts.

In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.

8) Utilize negative keywords.

Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.

9) Test, test, and test some more.

The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!

10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.

Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!

11) Don't pigeonhole yourself.

We all know that Google AdWords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click service out there. Your competitors know it, your users know it - even your grandma might know it. It would be foolish to ignore Google as a venue for advertising, but don't forget that there are other search engines out there who offer similar services. Yahoo!'s new Panama search system is catching on, and Microsoft's adCenter is nothing to sneeze at either. Both companies are currently offering sweet promotional deals to new Pay-Per-Click advertisers to stay competitive so take advantage and diversify!

Well that's all for now, good luck.

How will PPA effect adsense publishers and will it mean reduced revenuein Tourism sites?

The PPA adverts will be shown ONLY on the content network and not the search network so this will amplify any effect in this area.

The PPA program isnt exactly a new model and is basically the same as most affiliate programs that only pay for purchases or signups. Unlike normal adsense ads that analyse the content of a web site to determine relevent ads to show on the site adwords PPA allows the publisher to choose which ads to show on their site.

For publishers that don't wish to trawl through directories of adverts there will be an option to let Google choose the highest paying relevant ads from various topic areas. Revenue earned will most likely be comparable to PPC revenues for sites though but earned through a low volume of sales as compared to a higher volume of clicks.

It impossible top predict what will happen but it certainly will be interesting to see how things pan out. Google is a pretty savvy operator in this field so will probably have its plans well founded and make their latest product a big player in this area very quickly. They will need to ensure that the publishers can earn as much or more than the PPC network using PPA though or no publishers will sign up for the program. If there are no publishers , and remember this relies purely on publishers as it is on the content network only, then there will be no advertisers.

Google will surely realize this and most experts expect when the program comes out of beta then there will be plenty of incentives for publishers to sign up.

For publishers that dont put the work in with the new program and choose adverts that aren’t very relevant for their readers then they will most likely not have much success with PPA.Those that know their markets or have very niche focused sites could make good profits. Expect to see lots of new sites starting up to focus purely on google PPA topic areas also.

More info on googles PPA program can be found here : Google Pay Per Action

So Why Did Google Launch Pay-Per-Action PPA?

So why is Google launching a new Pay-Per-Action PPA product if the PPC click is working so well? Will it eventually move completely away from the PPC model that redefined online advertising and offer just PPA advertising?

Most likely Google will wait and see how the markets change before making any decisions. Are advertisers concerned enough about click fraud to jump ship altogether or will they see PPA as an addition rather than a replacement? Most likely both will remain side by side although most experts expect many advertisers to move away from PPC to PPA.

For some tourism advertisers the PPA action model will definitely be a better option. Resort and cruise tourism operators with online booking facilities will mostly benefit as they can run a campaign that they will only pay fees whenever they make an actual online sale so they are guaranteed to make profit or not pay any advertising fees if they get no conversions. It eliminates the risk for operators and will probably attract new customers that have previously stayed away from PPC which can be costly and ineffective if the conversions are low.

Other operators that sell lower value products and services or don't have credit card booking facilities online, such as small dive centres and tour operators, though may be forced to remain with PPC as PPA might cost more than their profit margins as competition for keywords pushes prices up.

For Google however there isn't really much risk launching PPA. It will most likely attract some new customers and if customers leave PPC to use PPA then they have kept those customers happy by offering them another option and maybe retaining customers they would have lost to other affiliate schemes. Its one more string to Google's bow and again places them at the fore-front of online advertising options.

Microsoft adCenter

Your ideal audience is among the millions. PPC helps find them for you.

MSN reaches nearly two out of three Web customers, and Live Search reaches over 40 million a month.¹ Reach the right customers with search ads targeted at the audience you want.

How does search advertising work?

• Pay only when people click your ads.
• Set your own price per click.
• See when your clicks lead to sales.
• Target your ads to the times, places, and customers you want the most.
• Use built-in tools to get keyword ideas, audience information, and detailed reports on your ads.

¹ Nielsen/NetRatings, Competitive Site Reports, November 2004

So what exactly is Pay Per Action (PPA)?

The Google AdWords (for advertisers) and AdSense (for publishers) programs currently charge/pay each time an advert is clicked on and this is open to abuse by fraud publishers clicking on their own adverts or using automated click-bots to gain revenue.

Google is oh so very aware of this and some sites are quoting figures of up to 30% of all clicks could be considered fraudulent.This is a hell of a lot of profit for the fraud-gangsters and a huge cost for advertisers even if only a small percentage of this is undetected.

Despite the click fraud problem the advertising model does work really well and continues to attract both advertisers and publishers. This just shows how effective online ad campaigns really are!

Google Pay Per Action PPA

Google announced recently that they will be offering Pay Per Action (PPA) advertising in addition to their well established Pay Per Click (PPC) program.Currently in beta, and only available to US based subscribers, will this new program make huge waves in the affiliate advertising community?

See the Google website here...

Here's what Google say themselves:

"Increase your advertising reach while paying only for actions that you define. First, you'll create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site, such as signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. Then you'll set the amount that you're willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you'll install conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed.

Once you've completed these steps, publishers in the Google content network can choose to place your ads on their website. You'll only pay when a user clicks on your ad, visits your site, and completes your desired action.

Pay-per-action ads complement your current campaigns by providing a new pricing model that extends your reach and allows you to pay only when a defined action is completed on your site. This beta feature is currently available to AdWords advertisers in the United States on a limited basis as part of our beta test."

In the next few days I will answer some of the obvious questions in regards to this enw program which holds a lot of promise for the SME Tourism Products out there.

How to avoid Click Fraud

Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.

Click fraud occurs in a number of ways:

1. A rival decides to have fun clicking your links in order to drive your costs up

2. a Web site that does context ads for one of the search engines, and who therefore gets paid when a visitor to their site clicks on your ad, generates fake clicks to earn a few bucks extra.

Google and other SE's perform ongoing analysis in order to catch it, and when they find patterns of click fraud, they automatically deduct the wrong charges from your account. In addition, if you think you have found evidence of click fraud in your reports, you can complain and they'll check for you.

Click fraud is an annoyance, but for most tourism advertisers it's a fairly minor one. You can find out more by searching the Web for articles on click fraud, there are thousands. You'll also find numerous vendors ready to sell you services to analyze your log files if you feel you are being victimized by click fraud.

More useful to most beginning advertisers is this warning:

Resist another kind of fraud altogether: people who claim they can "get your site into the top 10!" of search-engine results, or conjure any other dramatic results for you, for a fee. You might get this in the form of phone calls from salespeople. Hang up on them. Nobody can really sell you position on the main search engine results pages.

There is no real short cut!