Over New Year’s I took a little vacation to the tune of a 10-day Caribbean cruise. This trip gave me the chance to get away from the PPC world for a few days, but it didn’t stop me from thinking about PPC.

One stop was in Limon, Costa Rica and I chose to take an excursion into the rainforest. After a harrowing bus drive where I seriously questioned how a full size tour bus can navigate such narrow gravel roads we arrived at the Veragua Rainforest. First we received some education about the diversity represented in the rainforest, including poisonous frogs, sloths, howler monkeys, snakes, butterflies and so much more. Then we took a 10-minute aerial tram ride through the canopy and had a great view of the rainforest.



As you can see the rainforest is thick and no space is unoccupied. Trees grow taller and taller, ever competing for the rarest commodity: sunlight.

PPC Is A Jungle

In our parable, sunlight represents first page placement on search engine results and the quality of that light represents average position. Google does experiment with different numbers of ads on search results pages, but there is a finite amount of “sunlight” at any one time. Therefore, the competition for exposure is fierce.

What really intrigued me as I explored the rainforest was how plants competed for sunlight. There were many different strategies being employed with varied degrees of success. In my next couple posts I will discuss how each of those methods equates to a specific PPC strategy and you can learn what competitive strategy can help you compete in your jungle.

For those of you trying to improve your conversion rate and get more from your website, I highly recommend Conversion Conference. I attended the inaugural event in 2010 and will be a speaker in San Fransisco this year. But I know that it can be pricey to attend conferences, so here is a coupon code that will get you $600 off if you register before January 20th (I know that’s Friday, so hurry):

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If you’re coming and would like to meet up, please reach out to me on Twitter @robert_brady or leave a comment here and I’ll email you. Thanks.

Yesterday I was browsing the Facebook and noticed a little message above my feed. The message stated that Facebook makes it’s money from ads and there was a link to learn how they do it. As an advertiser I was curious to see what Facebook was trying to tell users. Here is the page they showed me –

What Is Facebook Trying to Accomplish?

Facebook has hundreds of millions of users. They’re still aggressively trying to grow and that is hard to do when you’ve already achieved that kind of market penetration. To grow, they need to get those people who aren’t on Facebook (and there are more than you’d think) to join while keeping current users. And there are few misconceptions about Facebook that I believe this page is addressing to try and clean up their image.

• Ads are annoying – Okay, maybe not a misconception. But while users may not like ads, the reason is simple – “Ads help keep Facebook free”. So while they don’t want you to bail because of the ads, they do want to set the expectation correctly. You get Facebook for free, so don’t complain about the ads.
• Ads are creepy – I’ve talked to many friends who mention that ads are targeted so well it’s creepy. This leads them to believe that the advertiser has some type of secret knowledge that allows them to show such a pointed ad. This leads them to believe that Facebook gave them that secret knowledge. Facebook is trying to let people know that they have control over ads and they can stop seeing them by simply clicking the little X on the ad (a great idea in theory that doesn’t work as well in practice)
• Nobody clicks on ads – Everyone thinks that they don’t click on ads. My bet is that they do, but don’t realize/remember it. I’ve run too many campaigns on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I know people click ads. Lots of them. And they buy stuff after they do.

So basically, Facebook is trying to educate their users on why ads are there, how ads are being served and the potential benefits (yes, I said benefits because clicking ads can be a good thing). I’d love to see how many visitors clicked through to this page. Facebook?

The team up at PurePPC.com has offered up the following tips for the do-it-yourself PPCer:

Nearly seven in 10 retailers expect their online retail sales to increase at least 15 percent this holiday season from last year, according to Shop.org’s eHoliday survey. The survey also found the average holiday shopper will do 36 percent of her shopping online, a four percent increase from last year.

Statistics like these have companies scrambling to increase their online advertising presence as they anticipate the biggest shopping season of the year.

Pay-per-click advertising, a type of online advertising that occurs mostly on search engines and directs users to the advertised company’s website, allows businesses to make their ads appear when potential customers search for specific keywords. The keywords act as triggers for the advertisements, which, when clicked, lead the user to a website related to the original search term.

Many businesses have started pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns as they have realized the potential for profits from it. However, because it is such a complex field, agencies specializing in pay-per-click management, such as Utah-based PurePPC.com, have emerged and offer pay-per-click services to companies to lighten the workload.

“Most people realize they should be doing PPC, but don’t know much about it,” said Todd Julien, president of PurePPC.com. “We run into cases like this all the time.”

So PurePPC.com offered a couple tips to these do-it-yourself types:

• Use specific messaging to differentiate the ad from others. Use two or three terms to make the phrase specific and unique.
• Have goals, a budget and conversion tracking — PPC campaigns without conversion tracking have no way of measuring success. Never spend any money without it. Consider using Google’s free code for conversion tracking.
• Monitor geographic success. Google offers a tool called The Dimensions tab that allows users to track PPC campaigns by region. If a campaign is not generating sales in a particular region, exclude it. Conversely, if a particular region generates high sales, consider creating a second campaign to target that region and language.
• Have sensible landing pages for ads. If the ad promotes women’s shoes, be sure it links to the website’s page for women’s shoes. This may seem like common sense, but surprisingly, there are many ads that don’t have logical links to the pages they advertise.
• If all else fails, use an agency. PPC is a tricky art that can be time-consuming and costly if the user doesn’t have the necessary skills and knowledge to run a campaign. Agencies specializing in PPC have the know-how and resources to drive a time and cost-efficient campaign.

“If people follow these tips, while they are basic, they can elevate their PPC campaign to the next level,” said Tim Gilson, vice president of sales for PurePPC.com. “PPC is a powerful marketing tool and with the right methods implemented, it can drive revenues for companies and give them a forerunner presence online.”

PurePPC.com provides full service pay-per-click management and consulting services to clients all over the world. Unlike other PPC agencies that dabble in multiple services, the team at PurePPC.com focuses on delivering the best results through pay-per-click marketing. PurePPC.com has managed millions of dollars in PPC spend and has saved its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing costs.

Recently I’ve been reading through the book “Killer Facebook Ads“(disclosure: affiliate link) by Marty Weintraub of aimClear. The guy is probably the smartest Facebook advertiser out there. I got to hear him speak at Pubcon earlier this month and the book lets you consume the info at your own pace. But I digress…

Marty points out that a Facebook ad image needs to accomplish two major objectives:

1. Cut through the clutter/attract attention
2. Lend context to the headline or vice versa

At almost the same time I was reading about this (page 140 if you’re curious) I came across the following ad in my own Facebook account:



I acknowledge that the ad successfully accomplished objective #1 because I noticed it. No small task for an internet marketer who is more well trained at ignoring ads than most. But the ad fails so miserably on objective #2 I had to post about it. So how did if fail? Let me count the ways:

• Members of the LDS church believe in modesty – the low cut tank top is sending the wrong message
• Tattoos are discouraged by the LDS church – this girl has more ink than a printer cartridge (and that’s just what you can see)

Basically, this image produces mental friction because the copy is talking about LDS dating, yet the image is in opposition to the connotation of LDS dating. I don’t know if this was a test and maybe this image got a better CTR, but my guess is that it failed to convert traffic because the message from the ad copy didn’t align with the message of the image. Your thoughts?

In the world of PPC advertising Google is the 800 lb. gorilla. However, Yahoo has always kept a strong presence in the space due to their content network. Just the other day I was searching through some answers on Yahoo Answers and started seeing some interesting PPC ads (interesting for the wrong reasons).

Special Characters Not Rendering

One of the first things you learn in PPC is that special characters are your friend. The word “and” takes 3 characters, but an ampersand (&) only takes 1 character. Therefore you see a lot of ampersands in PPC ad text. But take a look at this:



If you look closely you’ll notice that the & symbol has been rendered as & which is the html code for an ampersand. And to compound the problem, it then truncates the ad text with an ellipsis so you don’t see the call to action on the ad. Really?

Apostrophes Too?

I thought it was just a fluke result, but kept seeing it more and more throughout Yahoo Answers. But it isn’t just ampersands that they can’t seem to get right. They can’t get apostrophes right either. Behold:



I’m sure that “Kohl’s®” appreciates their brand name being rendered with an ampersand, a pound sign and the number 39 thrown in there.

This is the kind of thing that drives a PPC manager crazy. We’re under constant pressure to increase CTR and QS, boost conversion rates and maintain high ROIs. We meticulously write ad copy that evokes emotion, enumerates benefits and contains a call to action (all in 95 characters). The last thing we need is your ad platform to screw up our ad by rendering common punctuation like ampersands and apostrophes as gibberish HTML code. So Yahoo, please, get it together!

Ads.

The bane of television, the internet and any blank surface in a high traffic area.

You’ve been taught to hate them. You’ve been led to believe that behind every ad is a sinister marketer hell-bent on selling you something you don’t need. You mute the television during commercials. You may have even paid money for a TiVo just so you could skip commercials. You ignore ads on the internet so well we had to come up with the name “banner blindness” to adequately describe it. But is this prejudice justified?

Why I Click PPC Ads

For starters, a little clarification on what PPC means. PPC is short for pay-per-click, meaning that an advertiser pays only when someone clicks their ad. Google makes billions of dollars from PPC ads. You see them on virtually every Search Engine Results Page (SERP). There are two key things to remember about PPC ads:

• Someone (company, individual, etc.) pays every time an ad is clicked
• That same someone is trying to make a profit

With these two things in mind, here is why I click PPC ads:

I Get What I Want Faster

Let’s say you’re a small business with a new website and you want to add a Verisign seal to show your customers that your site is secure. If you search “verisign certificate” you might see results like these:


Clicking on the first paid results takes me to https://www.verisign.com/ts-sem-page, a custom landing page for paid traffic (this assumption is based on the “sem” in the destination URL). This page has simplified content that is more benefit-oriented and has very clear CTAs on the right side of the page, including a free trial. I’m not overloaded with tons of options. With one click I can get a free trial. Benefits are clearly presented. I can quickly get what I want and get on with my life.

Clicking on the first organic result (which is still a verisign.com page notice) takes me to http://www.verisign.com/ssl/buy-ssl-certificates/, the SSL Certificates product page. This page has lots of options, but the copy is more feature oriented, not benefit oriented. I’m on their site, but now I have to decide which of the 4 types of certificates is right for me. Each option has a Buy, Try & Renew option. This is usually when someone hits the back button or goes to check Facebook.

I Get Better Deals

Most people have that one friend who always scores amazing deals on everything. Whether it’s pointing out a dent to the checker or a super-human ability to stare down a salesman, most prices are flexible if you know what you’re doing. The same goes for paid search ads. Advertisers paid to get your click, so when you click the back button they just lost money. Therefore they try very hard to make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Look back at our search results for “verisign certificate”. You’ll see the 2nd ad is from GoDaddy and offers an SSL certificate for $12.99. If you click the ad you’ll see them compared to Verisign, Thawte, GeoTrust and Network Solutions with that same $12.99 price highlighted in yellow and basically screaming at you how cheap that is. But what if you hadn’t clicked the ad?

If you go to GoDaddy.com and click the SSL & Security link in the top nav and select SSL Certificates you’ll see a different story on pricing:


That’s right, no more $12.99 pricing.


This is your opportunity to let a marketer’s greed work in your favor. They’re spending money to get clicks and so they have to show results, and fast! Therefore, they’re going to give you the best deal possible to hook you. If you are already on their site and are browsing the SSL Certificates page, you might buy anyway. No need to give away the farm if you don’t have to.

In summary, I hope you see that when PPC advertising is being done well it delivers better results to the user, and please, keep in mind that every click does cost someone, so please click carefully.