 Is Pay Per Click Really Worthwhile?Published Date: 2008-04-12 15:56:49 WorkOnInternet.com
This ease of access has unfortunately bred unrealistic expectations, and outright dishonesty in the Internet Marketing world. Today, we will examine the PPC (Pay Per Click) arena. This really is an important area of the Web Marketing landscape, and one not to be ignored. Done properly, one can generate huge gains by using PPC alone, without any other advertising methodologies. Even if you do not have a website you can generate income using PPC and Affiliate Marketing, which is a subject in and of itself. But your business hat had better be on. Since Google Adwords is the most common, and perhaps the easiest PPC system to use I will focus on that here. Google Adwords allows you to bid on keywords, and to use those keywords to drive traffic to your website, or one that you are promoting, at a cost. The obvious benefit is that your ads, when done according to Google's ever-more-stringent guidelines will appear right on Google's website, which gets more hits per day than any other site on the planet (according to news reports). This type of exposure can put you side-by-side with the big corporations, and can allow you to capture a part of their market share. For this reason, the competition can be fierce and many people get in over their heads. But make no mistake, you can win big in Affiliate Marketing and PPC if you do it right. I've been very successful these past few months using just the principles that I'm sharing here. Here are two pearls of wisdom that can help you win the pay per click war. Do Not Overbid Each keyword costs you money each time it is clicked. Fortunately Google, and other PPC engines, allow you to bid on those keywords. It's your business to determine what a fair price is and what you are trying to achieve. For example, it seems logical to pay the highest price to be at the top of the list of ads, but it may not be if your product site does not have a high conversion rate (the percentage of people who visit which become customers). A low conversion rate can result in hundreds or thousands of frivolous clicks to your website, which cost you precious money. Let the big spenders stay in the top slot and get the most clicks. Let the user browse through the other guys first. Most people do not buy the first product that they look at. Society has taught everyone to "shop around". So if you are in first place, they will most likely look at the site and continue to shop around. Because you are most likely an affiliate, and not the site owner, you probably won't make any money when they return to the site later, if they return at all. You don't get paid when people click on your add, you only get paid when they buy. This may be the only realm of life where second or third place is actually better than first. Do Not Over-budget Each Adwords campaign, and most other PPC providers as well, allow you to set a daily limit for how much you are willing to spend (or lose). For new campaigns, unless for some reason you really see it worthwhile to pay $2.00 and up per click for an unproven campaign, I cannot see why anyone would budget over $40/day. Just think, if you stay under a half-dollar per click that gives you 80 clicks per day to hopefully sell something. If you go through 80 clicks and don't get a sale then you are doing something very wrong. Yes, I know that most "gurus" state that one sale per 100 clicks is good and average, but that has not been my experience. My campaigns average 1 sale per 10 to 20 clicks, because of the way I write my ads, and because of what keywords I choose (More on keyword choices and ad writing another time). So you should avoid "bleeding" money by not over-budgeting. If you cannot afford to lose $40 in one day then do not budget even that much. Only budget what you are willing to spend, and only spend what you believe that you will exceed in earnings. That's brick-and-mortar wisdom for a digital world.
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