5 Rules For Small Businesses Considering Pay Per Click Advertising

February 14, 2009

In earlier posts we have talked about how pay per click advertising can make sense for many small businesses.  If  you have decided that it might make sense for your business there are some steps you can take to make sure that your campaign will be as successful as possible and won’t just be a money drain on your business.

1. Set a Cost per Conversion Maximum: This is a very important step that most small businesses skip.  A Cost per Conversion goal is the maximum amount a lead or sale can cost you and still be profitable. The first thing that you have to do is define what your “Goal” is.  For mot businesses online the goal is to make a sale at that time.  But for other businesses, more complicated sales process that involves at least one phone call or service industries, the goal might be the visitor filling out your lead form or making a phone call.  For retail businesses there is a relatively easy way to figure this out, just figure out your average profit per sale minus any shipping and handling costs; that is your Maximum Cost Per Conversion, or MCPC. It may seem like a zero sum number but if you provide a quality product and good service you should have repeat customers which won’t cost you anything next time.

For lead-based goals it is a more complicated process.  Basically businesses either figure out how many leads equal a sale or estimate how many it should take, take the average profit per sale and divide the two.  This will give you a good MCPC target that can be refined through the life of the campaign.

2. Choose Your Keywords Carefully: You know your business better than anyone so you know what the keywords in your business are.  But are these keywords actually bringing prospective clients to your business?  Many times small businesses choose keywords that are too general or that are industry words.  It is important to use tools like Google’s Keyword Tool to choose keywords that have a high search volume but are not too general or too competitive.  You are paying for every customer who walks through your virtual door, you want them to be as qualified as possible.  Narrow your keyword list down and then …

3. Refine Your Keywords by Using Phrase and Exact Match: All of the major paid search engines allow businesses to use different match types when they set up an account.  There are four different match types, broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match.  Broad Match means that if someone puts in any of the words in your keyword string your ad will come up.   Phrase Match keywords only show up if someone types the words into the Search Engine in the exact order that you entered them, but they can be part of a much larger string of words. Exact Match keywords only appear in the Search Engines if the visitor types in your phrase or string of keywords exactly, with no other terms.  Negative match keywords are words that businesses never want their ads to appear under.

The right match choice can make all the difference in your campaign.  When we work with small businesses we start with almost every word under exact match and track the impressions and click through rates.  If the account is not getting any traffic through exact match keywords we loosen up to phrase or broad match. This is the opposite of most agencies, which generally  deal with much larger budgets, who start with broad match and make decisions based on the results. That approach brings great results over a number of months but it is for businesses who can afford to lose money in the beginning for tracking purposes. Raise Interactive works with smaller businesses and we realize how important every dollar is to our clients so we keep our accounts pretty tight and we recommend that strategy to small businesses.

4. Install an Analytics Program and Track: If a small business is considering Paid Search they have to have a way to track results.  Your Adwords Account, or other search account, will only show you what page the visitor came to.  It won’t show you how they reacted to your site and how long they stayed on your site.  An Analytics program can track all of that and more.  It allows you to test your website and make changes based on user reaction, not guesses.

5. Make Changes Based on the Results: The real beauty of Pay Per Click Marketing is the ability to refine your campaign by watching user results.  You can test different keywords, landing pages and ads and focus on the most successful campaigns.  You can ease the restrictions on your keywords or tighten them based on results.  At this point you can revise your MCPC goals through the results.  There is also the matter of Quality Score, which makes your ads more cost effective over time, which we will address in a later post.

Pay Per Click Marketing might not be an effective strategy for some small businesses, but if handled correctly it can be a very effective and trackable part of most small businesses strategies. Contact Us Today with any questions.

Pay per click Marketing for Small Businesses; does it make sense?

January 31, 2009

Most small businesses do not use Pay per click marketing, also known as Paid Search, PPC, Ad Words or Sponsored links (these are the links that run across the top and right of most search engines. Companies buy these ads through an auction system on the search engines). And I’ll be honest; when I first came into this business I didn’t see much value in PPC marketing. I thought only brand-new businesses or really bad websites (sites that are not able to be optimized) needed paid search. Why spend money on paid links; instead, just work harder to rank organically as those results are more trusted and clicked on more often. However, I have found over and over again that paid search has a place in almost any small businesses marketing plan. So here are five reasons that small businesses should consider a PPC campaign.

1. Target Geographically: Paid Search can be laser focused on certain areas, allowing you to purchase very desirable terms only in the areas you do business in. Organic search can be geo-targeted but it involves the searcher entering in geo-targeted keywords. With pay per click, you can pick the areas you want your ad to show up in increase the effectiveness of your budget. Geo-targeting is also useful if you plan to target new areas or expand locations, giving you a quick foothold in new areas.
2. Jump start a new business or site: If you have a new business or have just launched a website, its going to take time to drive traffic to your site even with the best search engine optimization firm in the business. So run a small targeted PPC campaign to drive traffic, start spreading the word and collecting new leads.
3. Fill in the gaps in an ongoing Search Engine Optimization: This goes right with number two. Let’s say you have been aggressive with your search techniques, building back links and gaining rankings in the engines. There are still words that you will want to target that you aren’t ranking for. The most lucrative keywords in your industry are going to be the most competitive and paid search can you give you a presence at the top of these search pages.
4. Seasonal Specials: If your business is seasonal at all, you can use paid search to increase your traffic at key points of the year. If you know the next three months are going to be slow, start a paid campaign for your most relevant keywords to make sure you still have traffic and leads coming in. On the flip side if you are a purely seasonal business you can use PPC to really drive traffic during the hot times.
5. Test keywords, conversions and your page: Because PPC marketing is so flexible and the reporting is so good, you can use it in combination with Google Analytics to test your page and your search strategy. Run some paid search on the keywords you are trying to rank for. See if that traffic converts to customers, and if it does, that’s great. If it doesn’t, you might need to think about the effectiveness of your keywords, your site and possibly your business model. Because you can test these words instantly it could save you six months of time and money trying to rank for keywords that might bring traffic to your site but not customers.

There are other great reasons as well but they generally apply to larger businesses with larger budgets. For instance there is research that shows that companies that own both the top ranking, organically and paid, get better name recognition and reputation with searchers. But small businesses need to be smart and reasonable. In a dream world with unlimited budgets maybe we could do that, but our goal is to your grow your business not bankrupt it. Would we ever recommend that a company focus its budget on Ad Words instead of a Search Optimization Campaign? Probably not, but it could be a very effective additional strategy for gaining new customers. So how do you do it with a small budget and limited knowledge of the space? We will address that in a future post. You can also just contact us and I would be happy to go over strategies with you.