The PPC management process

May 8, 2008

Creating an advert is actually very simple, but without the accompanying effort it will probably be a waste of money. It’s vitally important to lay the groundwork beforehand and monitor and refine afterwards.

Preparation

• Decide your budget.
• Check out your competitors.
• Reasearch your keywords.
• Ensure you have relevant, effective website landing pages.

Setup

Using Google AdWords as an example, the process is:

• Choose language.
• Choose geographical targeting.
• Write the advert.
• Insert keyword phrases.
• Choose payment currency.
• Select maximum cost per click.
• Enter contact and billing details.
• Done!
• Write a second advert to test against the first.
• Build the campaign by adding groups and more adverts, add more campaigns, refine everything as required.

Triggering

When someone searches on one of your keyword phrases, your advert will be displayed provided the combination of your maximum cost per click and quality score is sufficiently high. This is known as an impression. If you have more than one advert in a group, the adverts are automatically rotated.

Clickthrough

Someone clicks on your advert. The cost you will pay is determined by your advert’s quality score and your maximum cost per click. It will be £0.01 more than the next lowest cost. The ratio of clicks to impressions is the clickthrough rate. The higher the clickthrough rate, the higher the quality score, but this is only one of a number of determining factors.

Landing

The website page that your advert leads to.

The landing page is an absolutely key factor in the whole paid search process. This is where the visitor makes a decision to go forward or go backward. If the landing page does not engage the visitor, then the next step is probably backward. Having got this far in his/her search, the visitor will not want to go looking through your site for the desired item. Make sure the landing page contains what the visitor is looking for. Make it precise and relevant.

Action

One of two actions can happen now – bounce or convert. Bounce is when the visitor leaves your site without taking any positive action. Convert is when the visitor makes some sort of commitment (for example a purchase or an enquiry).

Monitor

There are tools to track impressions, clickthroughs, costs and even conversions. These can be analysed at a number of different levels such as keyword phrase, advert, ad group and campaign. Use these tools to determine which adverts are succeeding and which are failing.

Refine

Replace failing adverts with alternatives. Even minor modifications can make a big difference. Continue this process of keeping the best performing adverts and getting rid of the poor performers.

Control budget, maximum bid costs, keywords, targeting, advert distribution, campaigns, etc.

It’s an ongoing process. Keep refining to reach an ever wider market for ever decreasing costs.

Filed in: Pay Per Click

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