I have been working exclusively on PPC campaigns lately and have been receiving about 30-40 emails daily asking for Adwords help. Dam support ticket system. lol

PPC Campaigns – Pay Per Click

I assume you are reading this because you need some PPC guidance. As easy as Adwords is, it can and will be difficult if you are using it for the first time.

Most people are only concerned with Adwords (Google PPC campaign) but there’s money being spent in Yahoo marketing and now even Bing (new MSN Live search engine). Most people are looking to keep their ads up in the top 5 spots on any search engine they advertise with. Well, building a website and buying banner ads will not do much to generating you traffic anymore.

Adwords Help

When setting up campaigns you will notice that there are many options to set on your ad campaigns.

1. Ad Variations
2. Local Search
3. Keywords
and other options.

Learning to use them all and how they affect your PPC ads are beneficial to getting clicks. If you have an over used word try using a local search. Put in your city along with your keyword. This might not get you the 5000000 million daily searches for your word but it may get you the 1000 that search that word while their IP address is in your city.

Post many Ad Variations for the best reads. You may have 3 ads for your apartment complex – all with different titles.
1. Green Apartments – Solar, Recycle
2. Move in 2 Months Free
3. Free Water and Heat

Having variations allows for more clicks based on what may interest each person viewing your ad. Think what visitors may want to see. Not just what appeals to you and your interests.

Yahoo PPC Advertising

It’s similar to Adwords but you might use it to get a better price based on your key terms. Most people think they will get less traffic when using Yahoo PPC Ads but even though they get less searches than Google, your ad may appear higher on the sidebar than it may have with the Google giant.

Most business owners believe starting up a PPC campaign with a large budget is the best way to go. Well, that’s entirely on what you plan to get out of your PPC campaign. Will it be for promoting a new site? Are you looking to drive lots of traffic to your site? Promoting a sale to offer your new product at a discounted price?

Does PPC help?

I would sum it up in 2 ways. Yes and No.

Yes if you want to do some branding. Perhaps you have a new site and are just looking to get the name out there and possibly generate some traffic to your site.

No, if you’re looking to pool tons of traffic to your site. In most cases you will be spending more than the traffic you’re receiving. In many instances I have seen customers spending $200 a month for a campaign that gets them about 20 clicks. That’s $10 a click! If you’re ok with spending that amount because you have a harder keyword term like insurance, you might notice you get 2 clicks. This is usually because you fall below the line because other companies are bidding on the same keywords and have $10000 budgets for their campaigns. Having you PPC link on the second page is the same as not having a campaign at all. You might want to save your money if you fall into this category.

If this has helped you at all or you have any further questions, please comment.