Articles in The 'cost-per-click-campaign' Tag

Missing a Key Ingredient

by Katherine Bennett

Imagine seeing an ad for a gorgeous high end restaurant, which compels a visit on your part. Upon arrival, the hostess is friendly, the dining room décor is exquisite and the ambiance is perfect. Everything seems great and then the food comes. As you take a bite expecting an angel choir, you’re abruptly hit with a taste that mimics the scratching of nails across a chalkboard. It’s no wonder that this restaurant is quickly crossed off your list, and friends and family are warned to never step foot in this deceiving place.  It’s sad, but it happens all the time across the web. Many companies are missing the key ingredient of good service which affects their cost per click campaign.

Good service is the key to maintaining an effective cost per click campaign because it causes people to return to your site and share kind words with friends and others. When people are satisfied with your product or service they’ll come back. Many companies try to go after the new customer, but there’s a lot to be said for a business that keeps their current customers happy. Happy customers actually help to improve the success of cost per click campaigns.

Within a cost per click campaign, branding is normally one of, if not the most successful campaign. Why? People trust the name and want to do business with that company. In fact, they’ll even tell complete strangers that Company A provided them with a great product or service. Then that stranger will go look for Company A to provide them with the same product or service.  Analytics backs this theory. Many companies who are running a cost per click campaign receive a good deal of revenue and return visitors through searches on their name. Here’s an example. A company may sell cup holders, and their campaign for cup holders does well. Now, add the company name before cup holders, such as “company A’s” cup holders and the success of the campaign doubles or possibly triples. Many companies like cost per click campaigns because they get some of their best ROI, from their name, especially if there reputable. Now let’s look at the flip side.

In the opening paragraph, the high end restaurant had everything going for it until the food came. It is imperative for companies to effectively deliver on the product or service that was promised. In fact, not following through can hurt a cost per click campaign. Some businesses think they can treat a customer any kind of way and still be successful because there’s always new customers out there. However, that’s not the case. Your business can start out with a strong cost per click campaign, but if the service or product isn’t up to par, the cost per click campaign will falter. It’s not because the campaign isn’t good, it’s because eventually people catch on and stop coming back. In fact, they’ll even warn others not to visit your site.  This can hurt a campaign in the short or long term. If your cost per click campaign isn’t producing like it used too and all of the metrics and competitors didn’t change, check your service.

Good service is the key ingredient to a successful business and also to a cost per click campaign. The best cost per click campaign in the world can drive millions of visitors to your site, but if your company fails to deliver, that campaign will be of no avail. Any way you slice it, good service helps to propel a quality cost per click campaign to new heights, which benefits your business.

Your Landing Page Matters

by Marni Weinberg

I cannot stress enough the importance of having a solid landing page to direct website visitors to. This is especially true when you are running a Cost Per Click (CPC) Campaign. If you are going to pay to drive a visitor to your site, you ought to make sure the visitor is sent to a page that clearly and concisely represents not only your offerings, but more importantly the offering that this particular visitor was searching for. In other words, it is rather frustrating for a searcher to click on an ad for a pair of Nike shoes and instead be sent to a page for Nike shirts. If you’re lucky, your visitor will be patient enough to go through your navigation and locate the Nike shoes page they should have been sent to in the first place. More than likely, however, the searcher you already paid for will just click on the back browser and find another ad. So how can online retailers prevent bounces like this from occurring? Although there is no way to guarantee a low bounce rate, there are steps you can take to improve it and your landing pages are a great place to start.

A good landing page will possess a clear cut call to action. What do you want your visitors to do? Examples: Click here to receive your coupon, Fill out this form to generate your free report, Enter your email address to be added to our monthly newsletter, etc.

In addition and beyond just the importance of user experience, Google very specifically factors in landing page quality and relevance as part of their algorithm. This algorithm determines where your ads will appear and how much you will have to bid. Therefore, having an effective landing page will not only improve the experience for your searchers, but also afford you the ability to garner better online real estate and at a lower CPC.

What are you waiting for? Get busy and start to improve your landing pages!

Are your keywords up to par?

by MoreVisibility

When it comes to Search Engine Marketing it is critical to ensure you are utilizing the most effective and targeted keywords to get the best return on your investment. Your keywords are the foundation to any cost per click campaign and should be chosen wisely. They should be updated and tweaked often and ultimately be paired with compelling ad copy and the most relevant destination URL.

So how do you know if your keywords are “up to par”? It is sometimes difficult to choose the best keywords when you are so close to the subject. In other words, you may think you know what searchers are typing into the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) to find your site, however you might be surprised to find that what you may think is being searched upon is not at all the case. This is where an analytics tool comes into the mix. It is imperative to have a tool which affords you the ability to determine the specific keywords that are driving your sales, conversions or the desired action item (such as a whitepaper download, catalog request, online form, etc.) to occur. Your keywords should never be chosen by intuition, but rather, you should rely on your analytics program to guide you to the most educated choices.

One word phrases tend to be costly and generic; research shows that the savvier the searcher, the longer the keyword phrase or tail will be. In fact, a recent article stated that the average searcher is now utilizing 4 words to run a query. This approach not only keeps keyword cost down, but also provides for a more targeted and qualified visitor. For example, someone searching for the one word phrase dentist is a lot less qualified that someone searching for Dentist in Santa Monica.

Improving the keywords in your campaigns will boost your traffic quality and as a result your sales and ROI.