Pay-per-Click (PPC) is a popular advertising model that, most often, is used to complement organic (natural) search engine positioning. The model currently used by both Yahoo (Yahoo Search Marketing) and Google (Google Adwords) allows website owners to bid for keyword positioning. The actual ad appears in a separate location on the engines, usually under "Sponsored Sites" category.
Bid strategies are very complex and this is not an arena for the beginner. It is not uncommon for bids to exceed $10 - $50 per click. Additionally, the Yahoo and Google models do not necessarily enable the highest bidder to be in the top position. Positions are determined using a formula which combines bid and site popularity.
The systems is dynamic with bids and positioning changing throughout the day and night, 365 days per year. Accordingly, just monitoring competitors for hundreds and even thousands of keywords is a difficult task. For this reason, Webconsuls prefers to use third party bidding software. This provides us with a very sophisticated oversight tool that we program to make bidding moves in relationship to specific competitors and to the entire marketplace for keywords of interest to us. Thus, the software is always "spying" on the field and reacts or preempts other bidders according to our preset instructions. It enables us to monitor bidding gaps, set limits, target positions and even facilitates competition-buster bids.
Webconsuls has used 3rd party bidding technology for several years and our specialists are particularly skilled in its use.
We are now using dynamic telephone numbers to provide call tracking technologies for enhanced ad performance monitoring. With Dynamic Number Replacement technology, we can change numbers on the fly based on keywords or search engine. A different keyword or search engine means a different number.
Analytics and Pay-Per-Click go hand in hand. If one is paying for every click, it is important to know the sales /click ratio. In other words, what is the real "cost per click" and what is the return. As important, how does one determine which clicks resulted in a sale? How much did that sale represent in offsetting PPC cost. We refer to this as conversion analysis and it is an important measure of success.
One question that is always asked is, "If I have a high natural /organic ranking for a certain search term or group of search terms, do you think it is necessary to also have a Pay-Per-Click ad that appears as well?"
There is no right answer and it is usually situational and related to marketing philosophy. We believe the best answer involves pursuing both (organic and PPC), but carefully strategizing how you “play the game.” For example, let us say you were # 1 for both PPC and organic. The temptation is to get frustrated when people click on your PPC ad, ignoring the organic # 1 ranked option. Now picture the case where you are # 1 organically, but do not participate with PPC. That means that the same people who would click on your paid ad are the same ones who will now click on your Competitor’s # 1 PPC ad.
Can you afford to lose this "searcher,” is a key question (including taking into account your overall conversion performance)? This means that if people generally like your site and that your paid ad description is “honed to appeal to your optimal customer profile,” the PPC side then becomes much more insignificant. If they don’t click there is no charge; if they do click and you have a history of good conversions and product /services available, why not be in PPC?
Bidding strategy also involves current need analyses (including expansion planning). If business is strong with very limited ability to provide additional product or services, a strategy might be to reduce your bids (to perhaps third, fourth or even as low as # 10 place). This forces competitors to pay more when you are less dependent on PPC, causing them to exhaust a good portion of their PPC budget. When business is slow and when you need to get more PPC-aggressive (and do so), your competitors may have more difficulty meeting your bids. This is occasionally called Competition Busting." Bidding for any position and occupying that position forces the entire chain above that position to bid higher in order to occupy the same slot. This is good for you.
Your long-term best investment is often a combination of organic search engine optimization and PPC. Contact us for more information at 520-395-0825
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