PPC & the Rainforest
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.
Conversion Conference West 2012 Coupon Code
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):
CC12W610
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.
Facebook Wants You To Know How They Make Their Money
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?
Friday Special: DIY PPC Tips
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.
The Tyranny of Free
As human beings, we have an irrational desire for all things free. We enter contests over and over again to try and win some free prize. We drive miles to get free products from stores, restaurants, etc. We click PPC ads that use the word “free” at a higher rate than ads without. We love free, but is free really free?
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
I heard this phrase over and over from my Economics 110 professor and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the idea. He would explain that even though a consumer might get a free widget, the company still had to pay for the labor & materials to produce the widget, transportation of the widget and distribution. That “free” widget cost the company and most smart companies aren’t just giving stuff away out of benevolence. They are in the business of making money and that “free” widget serves a purpose. Gillette is famous for giving away razors to teenage boys for free; because they know that replacement razor purchases will make up for it. Stores offer coupons for “free” items because they know you won’t walk out with just the freebie (nobody wants to look that cheap). But how does this relate to the internet?
The Internet & Free: A Match Made in Heaven
As my economics professor pointed out, “free” items in the physical world have numerous costs that can add up quickly, like manufacturing, shipping, storage, customer service, etc. But somehow the internet changed our perception. Content is only produced once (incurring all the costs) but can be shared an infinite number of times on the internet for free. It’s like the perfect cloning machine and we’ve been expanding its cloning ability. Don’t believe me? Ask the newspaper classified industry or the music business how they feel about the internet.
Though some businesses and industries have fought the internet tooth and nail to protect their revenue sources, other companies have embraced the internet of free to become multi-billion dollar international behemoths. Probably the most visible today would be Google and Facebook. Whether it’s free email, free analytics, free image hosting, or free event planning, we got our fix and we’re hooked on free.
Free at What Cost?
With Google it started small enough. It was just a couple ads on your search engine results. After awhile we got used to them and started ignoring them. Then Google added some more. We learned to ignore them even better. Google added different formats. You get the picture. There is a constant arms race between Google and search users to make sure we notice ads, we click ads and we have a good experience in the process.
Facebook is a similar story. At first you could happily poke, post and message to your little heart’s delight without any of those ugly ads cluttering up your social experience. Then Facebook started showing an ad on certain pages. Then another and another. Pretty soon there wasn’t a page in Facebook without ads on it. But we were used to it, so we didn’t complain much. We were too busy checking out that hot girl from the party last night.
What’s In It For Google/Facebook?
If you haven’t checked the stock market lately, Google is worth $204.45 billion as of December 13th, 2011 at 3:10 pm MST. Just one share of GOOG stock is worth over $630. Though Facebook stock isn’t publicly traded, in recent IPO rumors the company is estimated to be worth $100 billion. So how do companies that make their business out of giving away stuff for free (search results, email, video, analytics, etc.) turn into multi-billion dollar businesses? As we often hear, follow the money.
While Google does have a handful of paid products, the vast majority of their revenue is generated through AdWords, their self-serve advertising platform. And Facebook was hemorrhaging cash until they launched their advertising platform. So why does Google and Facebook provide all these cool features for free?
Advertising Space!
It seems pretty straightforward and fairly simple, but I feel like sometimes we forget that advertising revenue is the main motivation for many of the decisions being made at Google and Facebook. Two examples come to mind.
First, I read a post on the Dragon Search blog titled “Bursting Google’s New Bubble Ads: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly” by Cassie Allinger. The post does a great job of explaining a new ad placement that Google released without so much as a blog post announcing it. She makes the point that because of this new ad placement inside the info bubble on Google Maps SMBs should now consider advertising here to protect their brand/prevent other brands from advertising inside their info bubble.
I agree with her entirely and as a PPC professional I would also advise an SMB to advertise here (and advertise on their competitors if possible). I just don’t agree that SMBs can complain when Google shows an ad next to their FREE Google local business listing. Ads are how Google makes money. That money funds all the freebies.
Second, I was participating in #ppcchat (a weekly Twitter chat about the PPC industry) and this question came up “What is are some things about AdWords that just F’n piss you off?” The next few minutes featured a laundry list of complaints from AdWords professionals. We were getting it all off our chest. But as I contrasted it with the first example above, I realized a critical difference – AdWords advertisers are paying Google. They are Google’s real customers. They are the ones that drive profits and keep shareholders happy. They have paid for the right to complain.
Remember – Nothing Is Truly Free, Even on the Internet
Altruism is exceedingly rare. Therefore, anything offered to you as “free” has some component or angle that allows the offering party to make money. Here are a handful of examples:
- Free email from Gmail – Ads alongside your emails
- Free video hosting from YouTube – Ads before, after or overlaid on your videos
- Free image hosting from Facebook – Anyone viewing your photos sees ads
- Free relationship management tool (aka Facebook) – Ads when you’re catching up with your friends
- Free analytics from Google – Seamless integration with AdWords (and a regular email with a coupon for $100 of free advertising in AdWords for new accounts)
- Free directions & maps from Google – Ads again
- Free business listing from Google – Ads on your page, potentially from competitors
- Free fan page on Facebook – Ads
Hopefully you see the pattern here. Many freebies on the internet are driven by advertising revenue. News sites write articles to sell ad impressions. Google will index the entire internet and offer you the best results for your search query so they can show ads. Facebook gives you a platform to stay in touch with friends or promote your business so they can serve ads. This is how these companies pay the bills and until you start paying, stop complaining.
