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February 22 2008 PrecisionMarketing 27
Digital Marketing Report: Case Study
Google
Click with your customers:
How to win business with a
Pay-Per-Click advertising
campaign
Advertising on the web can bring amazing results for your
Essential Tip:
control of spend. You might like to set a daily budget so that when
business but it can initially be a daunting proposition. But don’t your limit is reached, your ad is paused until the next day. There
worry – it’s really quite simple to understand how you can make
Google AdWords
is no minimum spend requirement or minimum campaign time,
it work for your business. so start small and build up.
There are two main ways of advertising online – cost-per-
thousand impressions (CPM) and pay-per-click (PPC), also known provides keyword
as cost-per-click. You pay for a CPM ad campaign before any
activity starts. If you pay for 1,000 impressions, your ad will traffic and cost
display 1,000 times on target websites. This can prove effective
from a branding point of view, but it can often be difficult to track estimates to help
‘‘
There is no minimum spend
‘‘
requirement or minimum campaign
responses.
With PPC advertising, you only pay when someone clicks on you make the best
time, so start small and build up
your ad. Text ads which run alongside or above search results on
search engines like Google are examples of PPC advertising. decisions about Results are more trackable and measurable than any other
The main benefits of PPC campaigns are that you get exposure
choosing
advertising medium. For example, you can stop ads running
on the search engines and associated sites, with millions of against keywords that do not give you a return on investment and
potential new customers. The best part is that you’re reaching
keywords and
quickly test other keywords. You can pause and restart your
them at the magic moment when they’re on the web, actively campaign at any time. For a powerful (and free) way to track and
reading pages and searching terms related to your product or
maximising your
measure your PPC campaigns, try using Google Analytics
service. This means they’re likely to be interested in what you (www.google.co.uk/analytics) to understand where your
have to offer.
budget. You can
customers are coming from and what they do on your site.
Experiment with different ad messages and placements to find
what works best for you. With Google AdWords in particular, you
‘‘
Make sure your campaigns are test your can also choose a variety of ad formats and target them to specific
‘‘
tightly monitored and opimised to keywords and see
geographic locations and languages. When you target regional
and local areas, you can reach the prospects who are most
ensure ads convert into actions how relevant they
appropriate for your business and you can even write ads that
highlight special promotions or pricing based on geography.
are to people’s
Two key points you must always remember as you launch your
PPC campaign are relevance and competition. Firstly, ensure
There are a range of PPC networks to choose from and as most
search queries.
that your ad and keywords are relevant to potential customers.
of us have a finite budget for marketing, it’s best to test them out There is no point in bidding on keywords when your ad doesn’t
first. Make sure your campaigns are tightly monitored and deliver. Secondly, research your competitors. Find out how they
optimised to ensure ads convert into actions. Through testing and are using PPC and how they write their ads. Be creative with
measuring, you’ll find the network that gives you the best return your text. Look at the star performers in your sector and compare
on your marketing investment. them to find out why they are achieving success. Learn from
Setting up a PPC campaign can be straightforward. You set up them and try to improve on their strategies.
an account and then bid against keywords or search ‘queries’ You’ll also want to track which keywords and ad text convert
relevant to your business. For example, a florist might bid on the to sales so that you know what customers were searching for
term, ‘fresh flowers’. For each search term you decide what you when they clicked on your ad. This will also help you to isolate
would be willing to pay for each click. This is then fed into an which keywords generated clicks but didn’t result in a sale. With
auction process that looks at how your bid compares to others. PPC, you can dump the keywords that do not pay off and test
The auction process on search engines like Google are not based others to improve your success rate and find what works for you.
solely in monetary terms, but also on relevance of the particular To help you try out pay-per-click marketing, Google is offering
ad to the user. The more relevant your ad is to the search query, Precision Marketing readers £30 free online advertising using
the better your chance of appearing higher up in the list. AdWords. Go to www.google.co.uk/advertising-freevoucher and
Although it might sound expensive, it can actually be very cost request your voucher. Your campaign can be set-up in 15 minutes.
effective. The medium is transparent and you can take full There's no additional spend commitment, so this offer is risk free.
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