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Pay Per Click Marketing

A great way to get consistent, reliable traffic to your site is to use Pay Per Click advertising. Paid Search lets you drive traffic to your site within minutes (as opposed to months for SEO) and YOU control the amount of traffic without worrying about the whims and idiosyncrocies of search engine spiders.

With PPC you pay for each click to your site. How much you pay is dependent on the advertising medium you choose and what position you would like in the advertising listings.

If you have a strong product with a good margin, paid search is a solid traffic building strategy. If you are doing affiliate marketing and the product you are promoting pays enough you can also use PPC to drive traffic to your landing page or directly to your merchant's page. Just be sure you are making more than you are spending... be sure you have a positive Return On Investment (ROI).

Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the top three vendors. The most popular of the PPC opportunities is Google AdWords.

Where Is Your Ad Displayed?The Google Search Engine Results Page

The graphic to the right shows where Google places your paid ads on it's Search Engine Results Page. The other paid search vendors offer a similar approach.

Because Google is by far the most used search engine, you'll generally pay the highest per click of all the SEs. In return you'll get a high volume of clicks if you want them.

Top position in a popular niche can mean you'll receive many thousands of clicks per month. Be prepared to pay anywhere from $1 to $5 per click for top position for very popular search terms and have a liberal budget if you plan to go for maximum traffic. Other advertising mediums like Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly called Overture) and MSN adCenter will cost you less but you will also see a smaller click volume.

If you can find "long-tail" keywords with less popularity and cost but still relevant to you product or promotion you may spend far less per click. However click volume witll be less dependible and conversion ROI may be harder to monitor.

Ultimate Control Of Your Advertising Campaign

The real beauty of doing PPC is the incredible control you have over the process. Not only do you get to write your own ads and specify the exact keywords and landing pages, but you can manage cost per click, ad position, and try out several ad variations to determine which ads convert the best.

Having the ability to create different ads with different headlines and ad copy lets you test to find what gets the most clicks and then converts best into sales. With AdWords they will automatically serve the ad with the highest conversion rate with more frequency. This put managing ad effectiveness and ROI under your control.

Campaign Reporting

Great reporting is available too. In addition to click through rates, average position, cost per click per keyword, Google Analytics provides page by page analysis of all the clicks to your site as well as bounce rate, natural versus PPC traffic comparisons, and visits and page views by source reporting. All the information you need to make intelligent marketing and site optimization decisions is at your fingertips.

The danger with Pay Per Click is that you can lose control very quickly. It's great to be able to buy 20,000 clicks per month but if those clicks don't turn into sales you can quickly lose money. To justify the $10,000 to $15,000 monthly expenditure that could result you must monitor click cost to revenue (ROI) closely. Careful management are required to make sure there is a solid ROI for that ad spend. But this is all easy to do with the major PPC vendors.

Affiliate PPC

For Affiliates there two main approaches to using PPC. You can send your PPC click directly to your merchant's site or you can send them to an intermediate landing page on your site first. Whether you choose a "one-step" or a "two-step" approach depends on niche, merchant landing pages, and the amount of PREselling required to put your prospect into a buying mood.

Optimizing landing pages, careful keyword selection, ad testing and sales tracking must be done to achieve the highest possible return and avoid overspending and margin erosion. Competitive analysis of new markets, keyword popularity and saturation, emerging trends, and of course your competition, all help you stay ahead of the curve and produce the highest PPC benefits available.

Merchants should also consider how they team with their affiliate partners when it comes to PPC. A well-thought-out strategy can mean that you and your affiliates can keep bid prices low and your competition at arms length when it comes to your PPC campaigns.

Learning PPC

Here are some learning resources to help you do PPC effectively. Successful search marketing requires a strong understanding of the variables. It is a deep and detailed online marketing strategy but for those who master it there are strong revenues to be gained.

» Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide To Google Adwords

» The Google Cash System

» Super Affiliate Mindset

BitCom is always available to help you optimize your PPC ad spend so if you would like to talk to a consultant please contact us here.