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3 Tips on Improving Your Pay Per Click Advertising
Anyone who is serious about internet marketing uses Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in their overall marketing mix. A key aspect of an internet business PPC campaign is the effective use of Google AdWords. Here are 3 PPC tips to improve the return on your PPC marketing investment.
1. Use negative keywords.
Negative keywords will cause an ad not to be listed if any of the selected words are used in the search phrase. If you are managing a Google ad campaign, the use of negative key words is essential. First, use a keyword research tool to find what phrases are frequently used. Two examples would be Google’s free Keyword Tool, or a fee based tool like Wordtracker. Let’s say that you sell Amway products. Research shows that the phrase Amway Arena is often used, but clearly it does not apply to you. So in this case, the word ‘arena’ would be a negative keyword. Another example might be Mike Dillard promoting his Magnetic Sponsoring book. People looking for a compass might search for ‘magnetic compass.’ In Mike’s case, the word ‘compass’ would be a negative keyword. Or perhaps consider Jay Kubassek, promoting his CarbonCopyPRO business online. The phrases ‘carbon emissions’ and ‘carbon footprint’ are used frequently for searches. In Jay’s case, ‘emissions’ and ‘footprint’ would be two likely negative keywords, since they clearly don’t pertain to him.
2. Use large enough sample groups for split tests.
Split tests are simply statistical evaluations of two different versions of the same marketing tactic. For example, you might be evaluating the conversion rate of a landing page. As with any formal statistical evaluation, the size of the sample is critical-more is always better. A good rule of thumb is that 30 conversions will yield conversion percentages within a 5% margin of error and for a robust campaign (more than 10 ad groups) you’ll need a minimum of 1,000 clicks to fully gauge overall effectiveness.
3. Give it time.
Remember, patience is a virtue. Nobody knows exactly the inscrutable ways of Google but strong evidence suggests that the company rewards loyalty. The more time you run your account and the more money you spend, the more Google starts to “trust” you. All other things being equal, time tends to bring a natural increase in quality scores which in turn lower costs per click. Since account maturity is apparently something that Google measures, like a fine wine coming of age, over time your account will naturally improve. For more information, see this report from noted Google guru Perry Marshall: http://www.perrymarshall.com/google-quality-score-comparison.
