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.

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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.

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?

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.

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?

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!

• “Get Girl Love Hiking!” – Is it supposed to be 2 sentences? Get Girl. Love Hiking. Because that would at least be a benefit (Get Girl) and then they’re just trying to build a little rapport. Right?
• “Wanna get a girlfriends that like hiking?” – Yes, I want a girlfriend (in the committed relationship kind of way) but I don’t know if I could handle more than one. Newsflash: “a” is a singular article. You actually could have saved characters by getting this right.
• “Only on meetsinglesonly you can get that!” – Why are you adding your URL here? It’s already right below your title. #wasteofspace

At least they did get a clear CTA in there with the old classic “Click here!” It almost makes the ad passable, but not really.

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.

Getting Started

Immediately upon login in I see 3 main options: Keyword & Domain Research, Keyword Monitor and PPC Campaign Builder.

I’m a left to right kind of guy, so let’s take a look at Keyword & Domain Research.

My dad raises grass-fed beef in Idaho, so I help him with his internet marketing. One of his competitors is Alderspring.com so I threw that in the search bar to see what information they give me. I immediately zone in on the SEO Keywords tab where I see a list of keywords where they’re ranking on the 1st page. The thoroughness is impressive and I can quickly see that my competitors are making a concerted effort to rank for organic terms in addition to grass-fed beef terms. Interesting.

Next I go to the competitors tab to see if my dad is there. Yep, there he is, 16th on the list. I go ahead and click on his name and it looks like the site just ran the same report for my dad’s website, BradysBeef.com. We’ll see how accurate they are now. Hmm. Not as impressed here since it only shows 6 SEO keywords with rankings (my Google Analytics shows many terms garnering organic traffic that aren’t showing here) and at least one of the terms has an incorrect ranking (I checked it against an Incognito Chrome window and AuthorityLabs). I’ll give them a break since my dad’s site is pretty small, but it might be something for them to look into.

Keyword Monitor

Okay, moving on I went to look at the Keyword Monitor feature. Looks like I have to pick between SEO tracking and PPC tracking. I’ll go a different direction here and use a keyword for one of my larger national clients. Looks like you name the project, give it a description and then drop in your keywords. The message says it will take 24 hours to get me data, so I’ll create a couple more projects and come back to it (I do have 150 keywords after all).

Okay, it only took like 4 hours to get the data, but the SEO Rankings look accurate and the PPC keyword monitoring is interesting. With only 1 day of monitoring I can only get so much benefit, but having this data being recorded over a longer time frame would provide great historical data.

To monitor local PPC keywords it looks like you need to install a proxy on your machine so iSpionage can check your local PPC results. I was hoping to be able to set the geographic area for a campaign I’m managing in another state, but I guess I’ll hold off on that for now.

PPC Campaign Builder

I’m always a bit leery of automated PPC building tools because of how important intuition is, but I’ll give this a shake. It looks like the default Step 1 is keyword research, so I’ll throw it a bone. I get a spinner while it processes, which takes about 30 seconds or so. Looking through the research list, most keywords are good fits. A few are a little off. I selected a few and threw them in the keyword bag (not sure what that means yet, but we’ll find out).

I choose the next tab, Keyword Clean Up, and look around. I think the next step is the small “Clean >>” link (and it is) but it took me quite a bit of looking to figure that out. Maybe a bigger button there? I save the keyword list and move to the Keyword Grouping tab. This tool is formatted pretty much the same and I eventually figure out what’s going on. You select a common root word or phrase and you can pull all those over into an ad group. Once in an ad group you can then export them to the 4th tab, Campaign Builder, where you put the finishing touches on your new campaign such as bids and ad copy. After filling in the blanks you get a nice output that you could copy/paste into AdWords Editor.

It was a little rocky the first time through (upon further review, I see that like a typical guy I ignored the bright orange “Page Tutorial” button that has a video explaining how to do each step. Nice touch and I recommend you watch them before using the tool. You know, do as I say, not as I do) but I could definitely go much faster the next time through and see how this would be a nice time saver if you’re doing a lot of build out tasks.

Summary

• Keyword monitoring is accurate and easy to read
• Solid domain research
• Great way to get a fast, high-level picture of what your competitors are doing
• Campaign builder could save you a lot of time on account build out