Efficiently Managing A Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing Campaign
Posted by Tiffany Guarnaccia on: 2005-08-12 18:52:03
An article written by Tiffany M. Guarnaccia, Searchfeed.com Corporate Communications
Search terms and listings are the building blocks of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, therefore after creating a campaign by effectively selecting search terms and creating powerful listings, it is important to efficiently manage those search terms and listings to receive maximum Return on Investment (ROI) and high sales conversions. When managing a search campaign, one should consider placement, campaign components and maintenance, including the monitoring of the bid process for search terms.
Search Term Placement
An advertiser’s bid for a particular term determines the placement of sponsored search results in relation to competitors’ ads (i.e. first, second or third position). Search term placement can determine how many Internet visitors are exposed to an advertisement. Industry statistics indicate that listings near the top of the sponsored search results are more visible within search results. Therefore, search terms that are the most specific to your campaign should be placed within the top five bid positions. This includes all terms that are most relevant to your business, because terms with lower positions may not receive as much exposure.
Case in point, if a business sells green rubber pens, then they should bid for the top position on the term “green rubber pens.” For general terms, like “pens,” a top listing is not necessary because the term is too general. The business might receive traffic from Internet visitors performing general searches, not focused on a specific product or service.
Advertisers should also aim to be in the top positions for their business’s branded terms. When a potential customer searches for a term related to the company and other product results are returned, a customer can lose trust in that brand. Specifically, if the term is the exact name of a company’s brand, ideally that company should be in the first position, and then distributors and dealers should be listed in the position that follow. For example, if the company’s name is Mom and Pop’s Pens, the keywords should include the brand name “Mom and Pop’s Pens.” Bidding on branded terms can help you to sustain control of your brand and boost ROT (Return on Trust).
Analyzing Campaigns
Once keywords have been chosen and bids have been set, it is important to monitor a search advertising campaign and to gather information from industry trends to keep a competitive edge. A tracking URL can be used by advertisers to track and analyze campaigns to learn more about visitor’s behavior on an advertiser’s site and track conversion rates. Individual tracking URLs are also extremely beneficial for tracking success of separate campaigns or campaigns with multiple providers. They can also help to answer more elementary questions such as, “Am I using the right terms to advertise my website?” and “Are my current search terms directing the right visitor traffic to my site?”
Some pay per click advertising firms provide tracking services, while others encourage that the advertiser uses a third party with centralized analytics. Examples of third party URL tracking companies are GO TOAST, which offers exclusive conversion tracking tools and Rules Based Bidding™, and BidRank, which offers BidRank Analytics, a service that can be used to track clicks and analyze ROI across different search engines.
Campaign Maintenance
It is also important to monitor industry trends, maintain realistic bids, and refresh the actual URL and the listing. If possible, updating bids should be a daily task, but if that is not possible, aim for at least once a week. Many pay per click advertising firms have free bid manager tools, which automate the bid updating process providing an added campaign service. For example, Searchfeed.com offers advertisers a bid maintenance tool that allows for multiple keyword bids to be changed simultaneously, helping ensure the best ranking. The search advertising firm’s Position Maintenance Tool ensures top position for campaign listings and helps to eliminate bid gaps. By using the tool, an advertiser's listing will always remain $0.01 above the second position regardless of whether the bid value increases or decreases. For example, if an advertiser selects a maximum bid of $0.25 and the current bid value is $0.14; his or her listing will be posted at $0.15. MIVA.com (formerly known as FindWhat.com), another pay per click search-advertising firm offers a similar BidOptimizer™ tool. This tool allows advertisers to optimize keyword bid prices to the position of their choice as long as obtaining the position doesn’t exceed the maximum bid value. Using these tools and automating the bidding process can help advertisers to avoid overspending.
Conclusion and Quick Tips
In conclusion, to ensure Pay per click advertising campaign success it is important to efficiently manage pay per click campaigns and consider a search term’s placement, campaign components and maintenance. This includes monitoring ranking, using a tracking URL and updating bid amounts.
For a brief point of reference, use the following tips as a guideline for a more successful search advertising campaign:
Search Term Quick Tips
Managing Terms
1. Ensure Top ranking for important search terms
2. Use Tracking URLs to help analyze the campaign
3. Monitor and update your bids daily