When you do something all day, it becomes so commonplace to you that you forget that what you’re doing might be considered obscure to the general public. The other day was one of those days for me in regard to PPC.
I was at a friend’s Christmas party and this guy started making small talk with me and asked me what I did for a living. Once again forgetting that few people know what PPC stands for — let alone what it is — I nonchalantly told him I ran a PPC firm. He of course scrunched out a pretty puzzled look and asked “PPC? What’s that?” I went on to give him the PPC spiel, explaining about keywords, geo-targeting, AdWords, etc., etc.
At the end of my bit, including a few stats about the success rates of PPC, the guy, whose name I discovered was Mark and had just started his own company four months ago, said, “Dang. Sounds like I need to start doing that.” So we talked about pricing with agencies and he told me there was no way he could afford it right now. I mistakenly ended the conversation and moved on at the party. Stupid me.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that I should have told him people can do their own PPC. Admittedly, for startups like Mark’s, PPC agencies are often a bit too pricy. So why not do some of your own?
With a little research and exploration, you can make quite a dent with PPC. Here are five basic tips I came up with for people who want to do their own PPC:
- Use specific messaging to differentiate your ad from others. Use two or three terms to make the phrase specific and unique.
- Have goals, a budget and conversion tracking — PPC campaigns without conversion tracking have no way of measuring success. Never spend any money without it. Consider using Google’s free code for conversion tracking.
- Monitor geographic success. Google offers a tool called The Dimensions tab that allows you to track PPC campaigns by region. If a campaign is not generating sales in a particular region, exclude it. Conversely, if a particular region generates high sales, consider creating a second campaign to target that region and language.
- Have sensible landing pages for ads. If the ad promotes women’s shoes, be sure it links to the website’s page for women’s shoes. This may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised at how many ads don’t have logical links to the pages they advertise.
- If all else fails, use an agency. PPC is a tricky art that can be time-consuming and costly if you don’t have the necessary skills and knowledge to run a campaign. Agencies specializing in PPC have the know-how and resources to drive a time and cost-efficient campaign.
So, go to. Do a little preliminary research, explore a bit and make your PPC campaign successful. PPC is a powerful marketing tool and with the right methods in place, it can drive revenues for your company and give you a forerunner presence online. And don’t hesitate to speak up if you’ve got questions. We’re here for you.
PurePPC.com provides full service pay-per-click management and consulting services to clients all over the world. Unlike other PPC agencies that dabble in multiple services, the team at PurePPC.com focuses on delivering the best results through pay-per-click marketing. PurePPC.com has managed millions of dollars in PPC spend and has saved its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing costs.
