Tag Archives: optimization
Pay Per Click Optimization Tactics
Posted on 14. Mar, 2010 by admin.
At this point, we are no longer just gathering data, but we are attempting to gather some insight into our pay per click campaigns. There is only a small percentage of data that really matters. It is the insights you gain and now it is the actions that you take. Actions are only possible when you have very clear measurements. What you can’t measure, you can’t improve and what you can’t measure, you can’t act upon.
The reports and data are not going to be enough. There is no shortage of data in the average program. There are dozens of reports that you can run in the Google report center. There are also tools like Google Analytics. There are software and keyword tools. Despite all that is available, you still have to understand the difference between data and a measurable action. You have to be sure that every action you take, that you are gauging what is increasing your campaign performance or bringing you forward or backwards.
When you take an action, it is essential that you measure that action to see if it works. This is one of the things people will do. They are not scared to take the action. They will take the initial data, look at it and see that it is not meeting their business objectives. They will then take the actions to make improvements, but they neglect to monitor and measure those actions to actually see what is working and what is not working, thus allowing them to continue with their pay per click optimization tactics.
For example, if you are looking at the CTR metrics, that is one thing. But, if you take action, you are going to write a new ad and create a split test with the intent of increasing that CTR. This is a great action step. But, if you just run to split test for the sake of having two ads and you don’t measure which ad is the definitive winner, you are wasting your time. Pay per click optimization is about taking out all of the guess work and all of the data you are compiling and turning it into known factors so that you can build on it and continue to get more of the good stuff that is known and eliminate the bad stuff that is the unknown.
When you are looking at your ad copy revisions that you have made and that split test you created within you pay per click campaigns, it is essential that you quickly and efficiently make a decision on the winner. One ad is going to out-perform the other either on the CTR metric or conversion metric or both. Once you have gathered this information, you need to delete the loser and then retest again.
Again, if you don’t partner that action with measurements, you will fall short in terms of campaign performance. You will continue to move in this endless cycle of doing things in your account but never knowing exactly what is working and what is not. This can be kind of an emotional roller coaster. It is a lot easier if you track everything that is happening so that you can continue to understand why the improvements are taking place. Also, you need to understand even more why things fail.
Tracking your conversions is essential to measuring your results and tracking those campaigns that are generating the most leads; tracking which ad headlines and text ads the highest percentage of leads and have the best conversion rates.
Looking at all of the key metrics in your account and looking to attract those conversions, tracking which components in your account are making those conversions possible; which components are driving those conversions and driving the highest percentage of them, thus allowing you to be very focused on improving elements within your campaign that are generating good results as well as looking at those elements that are causing harm to your campaign.
Pay per click optimization strategies encompasses a process of gathering data, making the decisions based on relationships and recognizing the gaps between your current campaign performance and your goals. Next, you bridge those gaps by continued action and improvements and measure the results of those actions to gain insight into what is working and what is not working.
One thing that is very easy in Google, one of the easiest to do in regards to optimizing your Google campaigns is to notice what isn’t working. You know it is not working if it is not bringing you closer to your goals. If you are running a campaign and it is not generating a descent amount of leads usually is a good indicator that your ad group, campaign, or ad copy is not working. Is it producing leads at the right conversion rate, meaning are a high number of people taking this keyword in your ad group and going to your landing page and opting in, are they buying? If a high conversion rate is present, this is probably good. But having a keyword with a very low conversion rate; such as 3%, indicates that there is not enough interest there and there is definitely a gap between the keyword and your ad. What you will find is that either there is a low quality audience or not interested in your offer, or the keyword is not specific enough, whatever the problem, it just is not working.
A low conversion rate, most times, is a very clear indication that something is not working and that there is something wrong there. The higher conversion rates indicate a higher level of interest. They are more likely to convert to sales. The conversion rate is another key metric that can be used to determine whether something in your campaigns is not working.
Another metric for what is not working is the Cost Per Click metric, or CPC. If you have a set budget and you know that the market value of your lead is around $6.00 and you can afford $6.00 a lead and still make a profit, if the lead is costing you $25.00, it does not matter how good that keyword is converting or how everything looks on paper, a $25.00 CPC shows you that something is off. Thus, the CPC is another great way for determining what is working and what is not working.
Once you have determined what is not working, you are going to delete those elements. You are either going to pause the ad group or delete the ad group. Another step is to pause the keyword or delete it completely. Either way, you are going to need to shut it down as soon as it shows you, after 20 or 30 clicks, that it is just not producing. It is over priced, low traffic, with no conversions, and displays lack of interest, which means little to no sales.
You are always going to want to plug those holes on a constant basis. With Google, everything is going to be a test and a lot of it is not going to work. This is why it is essential that you see what is not working and quickly act upon it, by taking it out so that it doesn’t continue to bleed your ad dollars. If you don’t act quickly, you can fall behind in the race very quickly.
A key factor for success, which occurs over time, where you can get some industry metrics
starting out in a new market or you may have a market where you don’t know what your metrics are and you are going to have to develop them. Often this is the case because every business is unique in terms of their goals, their budgets; everything is unique within you business. In situations like this, you are going to need to set some campaign benchmarks that are measurable that pertain to your business, that are obtainable just for your. You want to set something that is specific to you, not broad. This will be something that you will need to develop over time. Again, this is an ongoing process. Therefore, optimization is going to remain there for as long as you manage an advertising online campaign.
Through the optimization and data, when you gain those insights, you want to immediately set some benchmarks for what works. You want to be clear on your benchmarks; such as, what your CTR should look like. You want to know what it should be in your market. You know that when you get a certain benchmark, you show up at the top of the page. This is something you are going to have to watch from your traffic and experience.
Next, what about your CPC? For example, you notice that you make the greatest profits at the end of the month. This can be determine if you are simply taking your ad spend that you put into Google, the entire amount of ad dollars that you used for your Google advertising and you are just adding up all the sales, revenue, and profit that was generated during that month and compare those two metrics. When you do this, you are going to find out which months are more profitable, which ones are not as profitable and you know which campaigns. You may have noticed that based on your numbers, that your CPC, there is a certain Cost Per Click that always tends to produce a profit. You also know that if you go much over that CPC, you go into negative, no matter how well you do, just based on performance metrics, that there is a certain CPC, that if you pay it, you are certain to lose money whereas if you keep your CPC at or below a specific CPC, you are guaranteed for profit. So, having a Cost Per Click benchmark is something that you will develop over time.
Then there is positions. It is important to know which positions are the sweet spot for your campaigns. This is going to vary from keyword to keyword and campaign to campaign. It is never going to be the same. This has a lot to do with behavior. It has a lot to do with the buying behavior. Are your prospects buying, are they shopping, are they browsing and how does their behavior relate back from the keyword query. You need to know which positions are working and which behaviors are producing sales. Overall, you want to know what is producing you the most profits and sales and good results.
You should also always have some conversion numbers. You should always try to beat your conversion metrics. The two metrics you are always going to try to beat ever day, that will make you the number one advertiser in your category or your market, is to increase your CTR (Google ranks everything on this) and your Conversion rates (this is the ratio you bench everything on). The conversion rate reflect the leads and the sales opportunities in your pipeline. The CTRs reflect for Google, the value in your traffic, the value in giving you those positions. Every time Google puts you at the top of the page, there is a value in that. Google has to know that if they give you those positions, they are going to get paid in clicks. If it does, they will continue to put you there over and over again.
In conclusion, you should always be improving the CTR metrics as well as the conversion rate metric, then you will know that you are going to get the most high quality leads for the lowest price over time. Therefore, be sure you have some conversion rate metrics set in terms of benchmarks. What is a good conversion rate for you and what is a good cost per conversion (CPC).
Pay Per Click Optimization
Continue Reading
The PPC Optimization Process
Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by admin.
PPC optimization is an ongoing process. There are certain things you are going to do in a circular type pattern, meaning you start back over every week refining your ppc campaign, performance, and refining your results as well as testing everything out. Optimization requires setting it up and measuring it against your business objectives. The following week you go back in and refine again.
Optimizing ppc campaigns is circular in its nature; you are looking for what has changed. This is the essence of ppc optimization. You are only looking for what has changed, at one data range to another and one date range to the next. You are looking for what has changed because the internet is always changing. In addition, there are always new competitors entering the market. Such changes also include new keyword trends that emerge. For instance, about 25% of all search queries every day are brand new.
The internet is expanding. There is more meaning implied in keywords which can shift at any given moment. For example, say you have a campaign that you have had for a little while and one of the keywords is “income”. Initially, this seems pretty obvious; income is income. But, when spring time comes along, suddenly, income is related to taxes. Thus, most people doing search queries on income or anything related to income, 80% of the results are going to have something related to taxes. Thus, the meaning of the word “income” has shifted to mean taxes. What this should tell you is, if you are not watching your campaign performance, you will start to receive unqualified traffic and your campaign will no longer be targeted. This damages your ROI and profitability due the attraction of non-targeted traffic to your site. You have to watch your campaigns so you can catch any shifts.
Even Google’s algorithm changes often. Everything moves at a lightening pace. The reason you optimize and the reason you do optimize as a process is because it allows you to stay on top of any changes that take place. Plus, there is the added benefit that optimization, if done correctly, improves your performance. You will continue to take advantage of all of the opportunities that are presented to you.
First Step In PPC Optimization:
The first step to optimization is to continually test new markets. Testing is included as part of the circular pattern in optimization. Twenty five percent of all keyword queries are new. Keywrod trends affect the outcome of everything. Thus, if you are not watching to determine what the market is doing today, you are probably missing new markets or new ways that people are searching for your products or services. You may even be missing out on new opportunities and locations of where markets are gathering in online social communities and blogs. These are areas where you could be doing content advertising.
There is always going to be a new opportunity and the only way to continually get more market share and to get more traffic, more leads, sales, and profits out of Google, is going to require that you test new markets and expand out into these new markets.
In a brand new ppc campaign, you are doing a lot of unknown things; such as, using keywords that you have done some research on, but you are not sure whether they are going to work. For example, you have a new website and you have no idea how the landing page is going to convert; this is an unknown factor. This is why it is essential that you are always testing these factors and unknowns to find the knowns and continue with your progress.
A brand new Google campaign is going to require a huge amount of testing, even if it uses branded keywords, because you are still going to have to test all of the measurements we stated above. You are going to test to see where the traffic spots are. You are going to test to observe your competitors. You should be testing the whole system.
The second step in optimizing ppc is going to require that you monitor your campaigns on a daily basis. You especially want to monitor you test campaigns. Test campaigns are going to be the most prone to bleeding ad dollars. The reason being that if they are brand new and you are testing, 90% of what you are doing, is not going to work. This is because with keywords, which is true of any kind of direct response marketing, which Google is, is similar to direct mail. With direct mail, you are looking for a 3% conversion rate. This is also very similar on keyword search. If you put a lot of keywords in, some will drive traffic and sales, while others won’t do anything, some will not have any market, and no one is searching for them. Others are going to be very competitive. This could lead to you having to take your time in order to get market share. There are also going to be keywords that will cost too much.
Second Step In PPC Optimization:
Step two is going to require you to be in your campaigns every day, monitoring your campaigns and determining which ones are working; especially in a test campaign. The newer the campaign, the more frequently you should monitor it. When you are monitoring your campaign, you are looking for action. You are looking at your campaign to gain some insight so you can take some action.
Now, the question you may have is what type of action is required? You can’t do much on a daily basis except stop what is bleeding your ad dollars. So, when you go into your campaign, you are either pausing or killing the keywords and ad groups on a daily basis in a test campaign that has 20 or 30 clicks. Usually, the keywords or ad groups are experiencing terrible conversion rates, a high cost per conversion and they are not producing a lot of leads. Quite possibly, they may have a terrible CTR that you should pay attention to where certain keywords are getting a lot of impressions, but not a lot of clicks. Later, you will need to work on your ad copy, but you could be experiencing a situation where, although you have been optimizing your campaign and you still are not able to get your metrics up. In a situation like this, you have no choice but to shut it down.
But, most times on a test campaign, you just want to look at the conversion data daily and plug all of the wholes that are bleeding ad dollars on the keywords and campaigns that are not converting to leads and sales opportunities in your pipeline.
Third Step In PPC Optimization:
So, now when you move past, testing, monitoring, and plugging the holes, the third step in optimizing ppc campaigns is to evaluate what is working and what is not once a week. This is when we return to the performance metrics. To get the performance metrics that are meaningful, you need a significant amount of data. This step can not be completed off a couple of clicks, impressions, or conversions. The more data you have, the more concise you insights are, the more likely that the known is no longer an educated guess.
You can get performance data daily if you have a very high traffic campaign, ad group or keyword. Improving the performance data is a daily activity. But if you are looking at overall improvements, which include landing pages, ad copy revisions, and are improving the metrics rapidly, you need to do this once a week. Again, on high traffic terms, when you trying to burn in a position or do something else aggressively, you should be monitoring your performance on a daily basis. It is only if the data provides you enough insight that helps you to know what to do next.
Your entire account should be optimized once a week. At the account level, you should be looking for all the key performance indicators mentioned in this article. Of course, you first step should be reviewing you key metrics once a week. This includes improving your CTR, conversion rates, and finding new keywords and new markets. These actions should be done every week. The keywords that are converting to the most leads are the ones you should use to find new keywords and new markets.
Once a month, you should be looking at your Return On Investment (ROI). This is key because your ROI determines your business success. When monitoring your ROI, you are looking for ways to make more profits. The third ste is a different process. Like your performance indicators, this step requires that you have a lot of data. It has to be conclusive data. Once you see that a campaign has converted to 20 or 30 leads per day, then you have some pretty conclusive data that the campaign is a lead generator. We refer to this step as profit mining. You mine out the top performing keywords by re restructuring your campaigns to separate you highest converting keywords and placing those high performing keywords into their own campaign, thus allowing you to optimize them to get the most out of them.
Just for the keywords and ad groups that have proven to produce leads, you want to remove the terms, keywords, and ad groups, text ads, and capture pages and place everything into a separate campaign. Once you move them into a separate campaign, you can then increase the budget and increase the amount of time you spend optimizing. This allows you to invest your time in the right place, but more importantly, you can put your money into a campaign that is a lead generator or money maker. These campaigns, which are known to convert, are labeled and assigned a much higher budget. By increasing your budget on you top performing keywords and ad groups, you are increasing the ability to generate more leads and more money because you have already optimized the key metrics for traffic, cost, and quality. These are also campaigns where you understand their behavior. The campaigns could be a buying behavior or converting behavior and with such behaviors, you want to maximize how much money you spend in that campaign. You want as many conversions as possible. Again, this is a step that should be done once a month.
In essence, by doing this, you are creating different high performing campaigns that are separated based on their behavior. For example, you could have a high converting campaign for leads Another one for sales and sales ready leads, who are leads that are calling you and following up with you. You could have several campaigns in the sales funnel for your introductory sale or low price sale and your top tier sales, which have the highest profit margin.
This way you are tracking which of your campaigns are producing the most results and this is done by separting those key performers into their own campaigns where they can be optimized and maximized. This is a big part of the overall ppc optimization process.
After this step, you then want to track these high producing campaigns at least once a month. As you can see, the ppc optimization process does not happen in one day or one week, or one month. This is why optimization is often referred to as a system of testing, monitoring, and evaluating. Improving your campaigns is a circular pattern over days, weeks, months and then returning to step one where you compare the two date ranges and look for gains or losses, so you can continue to determine the appropriate actions to either stay on track or get back on track.
Master PPC Optimization
PPC optimization requires study and much practice.
Continue Reading
Learning To Master SEO Fundamentals
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by admin.
To feature your website on top of every important search engine, it is vital that you learn the various Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tricks that can ensure that your website or blog beats the hundreds of thousands of other websites posted on the internet. Here are some valuable tips and strategies on learning how to SEO.
The first tip is to understand the manner in which search engines work. They do not understand graphics. They depend on matching the words in the search criteria with the keywords that might be present in your website. Therefore, it will be necessary that you include many keywords and key phrases as you can into your website. Imagine the different key phrases that your viewers might type into the search text box and try to incorporate them into your site. Even if you included photos in your site, make it a point to attach text tags to those photos so that the search engines can understand them.
Your key phrases should also be mentioned in the url and other related file names. This is what the search engines are looking for. The title tag, which is located at the top of your website should contain relevant key phrases as should the meta description tags. The description tags will not be seen in your website, but will be featured in text form when the search engine displays your results. Therefore, it is important to include phrases that entice the readers towards your website in your description tags. Although it is important to remember not to just dump the same keywords and phrases in your URL, title and description tags and your file names since most search engines will interpret that as spamming and just reject your site. Instead, try to incorporate various related keywords and key phrases that are similar to your keywords.
It is also a good idea to check your standing after conducting some dummy searches through various search engines. This will give you a chance to fine-tune your keywords and key phrases. During this search, try to find out what the standing is of your competitors and try to analyze the reason for their success in case they are placed above you. You should also ensure that your site’s internal links are crossed-linked perfectly since search engines will find it easy to latch on to the right page. Another important tip is to continually add fresh content to your website since this will please both search engines and even your visitors. The chances of your website getting bookmarked will also increase if you keep on providing fresh information.
Once you have made the necessary changes to your website, patience is key. It will still take some time for search engines to recognize that fact and push you up the search engine ladder.
Make sure that you body copy is curtailed to around 300 words and that your keywords and key phrases are injected at regular intervals instead of bunching them at the top or bottom.
If you remember these tips and after making all the necessary changes to your website, you wait patiently, you will be pleasantly surprised to watch the search engines lock to your site during any related search. Try out various new methods to ensure that your site remains on top since your competitors too will be doing the best to jump over you.
To discover more information on this topic visit:
