Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [246]
It comes down to measuring one thing: money. If you aren’t tracking money, then nothing else matters. Only tracking money will help you be able to trace the most effective investments of that money by results. And that is where analytics is so vitally important for companies to not only implement but to master. Analytics is the cornerstone of Internet marketing, because nothing else can provide the tangible evidence of success, specific areas of improvement, and clear results from campaigns. Master analytics, and you will master online marketing, which I why this book has saved the best for last. See you in the next chapter!
Review and Hands-On
Start with the keyword lists that you developed from your earlier research. Divide your keywords into logical groups of like words. Develop your ad groups at this stage by finding the keyword phrases that can fit into a specific ad group. This can be by product, service, or content. The focus is to develop an ad that is closely related to the keyword group.
After that is completed, review the keywords in each group, and specify which phrases should be a strict match or a broad match. To really set apart your campaign, look again at the keyword lists you initially created and find those phrases that use the words you are bidding on, but also use an additional word or two that are not relevant—these are the negative words that you can use to refine the ad group and eliminate the nonqualified searchers from seeing your ad.
Once your ad groups are built, develop a few ads for each group. Focus on creating an ad that is clearly relevant for the group of keywords. Use those keywords in developing the title of the ad and the body copy. If there is a specific offer that you can add, such as free shipping, free demo, or free webinar, then work that into the ad as well.
It is always good to develop more than one ad for each ad group. You can run more than one, and the bidding interface will report to you which ad is performing the best. So, run multiple ads, and test different messages. Refine your campaign by tweaking the ad text in order to develop one or two that consistently perform well in attracting visitors to click your ad.
At this point, you still do not have to be part of a PPC network on any of the search engines. This is all preparation work, because everything should be in place and create a logical flow for the searcher. Of course, nothing should be actively running on a search engine if you haven’t developed your landing page.
Develop the landing page. Each ad group should have a landing page that is specific to the ad. The offer needs to be reflected on the page as well as a clear call to action. These pages must capture the attention and the interest of the searcher in a very short time, only a few seconds, so be efficient, clear, and concise.
Planning is key in developing successful PPC campaigns. The other key is never to set up a campaign and leave it to run on its own. PPC campaigns can be constantly developed, tweaked, tested, and improved. Simply leaving a PPC campaign to run will end up costing you more in click rates, because you will be overlooking important signs that your campaign may be incorrect or targeting the wrong audience. Never “set it and forget it,” but be constantly on guard and attempting to improve the campaign.
The final step is measurement. Clicks are not the measurement of campaign success. Ensure that the campaign is set up correctly to capture the result of the click—the conversion. Evaluate your campaign success on the conversions that the ad group and keywords produce, and adjust as necessary. You will find that some ads produce low click-throughs but high conversions; you may also find ads that produce high click-throughs but low conversions.