The most apparent difference between a small business PPC campaign and the PPC campaign of a large company is the budget. Large companies tell their PPC manager to capture all the available clicks, many times with no real cap on spending. The small business usually can set aside a certain amount each month, say $1000, and then has to squeeze every last drop from that budget. Here is where the rules change for small business PPC campaigns.

Focus, Like a Laser Beam!

I once had a friend who had difficulty studying. He would get distracted by the cool car on the street or more interesting reading material. We developed a saying for whenever he would get distracted to help him get back on topic: “Focus! Like a laser beam!”

Lasers on a fundamental level are just really powerful lights. However, a laser is able to cut through metal because that light is being focused into a single, small beam (think of a magnifying glass and ants). When focused appropriately, even a small laser can be extremely powerful. This is how you need to run your small business.

How Do I Focus?

Remember from our last post that budgets are set on the campaign level. Therefore, if you have $1000 to spend this month and 2 campaigns, each will have a budget of $16.67/day. Seems easy enough right? Actually, this is where you need to look at your own industry to determine the best course of action. Basically you need to see where your PPC fits in these 3 categories:

• Not Competitive – Lucky you, your niche isn’t a feeding frenzy of competition. You are able to get clicks for under $0.25 on very targeted keywords that will produce excellent leads. There probably isn’t a ton of search volume, but this fits your budget perfectly. You can set a campaign with a $5.00/day budget and capture all the clicks available. Welcome to PPC nirvana.
• Mildly Competitive – Your main “head” terms are pretty competitive and cost your around $1.00/click. However, you find there are quite a few “tail” terms (pocatello idaho wedding photographer instead of wedding photographer) that have much more reasonable prices and will produce highly qualified traffic. Try to separate your tail terms from your head terms. Make sure your budgets capture all the tail term traffic possible, then use the rest for the more competitive head terms.
• Very Competitive – All the terms you want to target are highly competitive. Over $1.00/click and sometimes over $5.00/click. You face an uphill battle my friend. If you can’t identify tail terms to target first, you will likely have to consolidate your budget into a single campaign with a limited keyword list. This will allow you to run effective tests in reasonable time frames. When fighting in a melee, keep your forces concentrated. Remember the movie Gladiator? Think of the first fight in the Coliseum where Maximus is taking on the chariots with just shields and spears. Stick together.

Okay, so you’ve ascertained how competitive your industry is, now the next step will be setting your keyword-level bids to match. And that is the topic of our next post, so tune back in on Thursday or subscribe to the RSS in the upper right. As usual, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

While having the right keywords in your ad group is important, writing compelling ad copy is even more crucial so your ad stands out from the crowd and gets clicked. First, let’s discuss the basics:

• Title – 25 characters
• Line 1 – 35 characters
• Line 2 – 35 characters
• Display URL – 35 characters, must be the same root domain as the destination URL
• Destination URL – 1024 characters, users don’t see this

Titles Are The Key

The title, though only 25 characters, is the most important. Since you chose keywords that followed a theme, you want to write a title that follows that theme. Ideally you also want your title to include your keywords because if the users search term is contained in your ad, Google will make those words bold, helping your ad to stand out. In the example above you’ll see the title is “I Mess With Texas T-shirt”. This ad is shown for searches on “mess with texas” and “texas t-shirt” where the keyword would be bolded.

Focus on Benefits in Line 1 & 2

You have a few more characters in Line 1 and Line 2, but you still need to be focused. Search users, whether explicitly or implicitly, are trying to determine which of the 10 organic and up to 10 paid links to click. You need to tell them exactly what they’ll get if they click on yours. Focus on the benefits of your product. For my t-shirts, the benefit is that you get to mess with Texas and you get to do it quickly because the shirts are in stock and I have fast shipping. Not to mention that 49 out of 50 states agree that Texas needs to be messed with.

Don’t Neglect the URLs

There are two different URL boxes. The first is the display URL that is shown with your ad. While the root domain must match the destination URL, you can fudge a bit for a little extra benefit. Say your landing page is www.mysite.com/contact.html. That would be an okay URL, but I suggest you spice up the display URL to say www.mysite.com/Keyword. Again, this will help your ad stand out by showing people that you actually have a page for their keyword (even though they just go to www.mysite.com/contact.html). Don’t be fooled into thinking that you just put your homepage URL in the display URL field.

Run 2 Ads at a Time

One last point. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS run at least 2 ads in each ad group. Use a little bit different title or different copy in Lines 1 and 2. Then you can compare the two ads later to determine which is working better.

Okay, you’re almost there. Now you have a keyword list and 2 ads written for your first ad group. Next we’ll show you how to take care of billing, budgets and bids.