How To Earn Money Through PPC

We’ve been in the search marketing business since 1991 and, that entire time, have been expecting an onslaught of competitors to come out of the woodwork. After all, search engine marketing (SEM) is a great business to be in! It is in high demand with low supply and provides effective, affordable and measurable marketing data.

The onslaught of competitors is finally showing up, but they are not agency specialists like we expected. They’re long-established businesses whose core industries are disappearing – so they are moving into our growing market in order to survive.

So far, we are only competing in the PPC (pay-per-click) arena, since paid listings are more similar to the traditional media that these companies are used to. PPC is also a part of the SEM industry that is easy to enter into and scale quickly. Instead of experience, these companies are relying on technology to differentiate themselves. The PPC services that they offer depend heavily on automation.

In the battle between man vs. machine, we offer the following points to consider:

1. Keyword Research – Who conducts keyword research and which determines which terms are targeted? Many automated services have a template list of keywords based on industry and you must use the standardized list.

2. Ad Copy – Who is writing the ad titles and descriptions? Your agency should be looking at competitors’ messaging, tailoring each ad group to the stage in the buying cycle, and constantly test new creative.

3. Budget and Bidding Strategy – Are the strategies articulated and flexible? Budgets should be flexible enough to move between search engines/content networks/campaigns as necessary. Bid strategy for each campaign should be clear – maximum clicks, highest click-through rate, most conversions, highest cost per conversion, highest ROI, etc.

4. Day to Day Management – What measures of performance will trigger day to day changes? Levers such as match types, dayparting, geo-targeting, accelerated delivery and more, should be evaluated on an ongoing basis. Keywords and negative keywords should continuously be added or paused based on their performance.

5. Content Network – Is the content network available and who makes the creative decisions? The copy in content ads should be different – to grab the attention of someone reading an article rather than actively searching for a product.

6. Landing Pages – Will the ads point to landing pages on the main site or custom landing pages? Ideally the landing pages should be targeted to each individual category of keywords and should be designed with usability best practices in mind.

7. Lead Generation – If a company has a lead generation site, how will success be measured? In addition to online lead forms filled out, phone call leads should be tracked, recorded and evaluated for internal training purposes. PPC data should be synced with CRM data to calculate a true ROI.

8. SEO Synergy – Will there be synergy with search engine optimization efforts? Keywords should be strategically targeted between paid and organic so the site dominates search engine results. Web analytics data from organic searches should be constantly reviewed to find keywords to be added to PPC campaigns.

9. Account Structure – What level of service will be offered? Each account should have a dedicated account manager who is accessible and responsible for paid search. In this evolving market, on-going training should be a top priority.

10. Reporting – What reports will be included? Reports should be easy-to-understand and provide actionable data. Many automated services require you to log onto their system and comb through the data yourself instead of highlighting the important results.

Automated pay-per-click services certainly have their place in an expanding SEM market, and they may be the only option for small companies. But we believe that the human touch is crucial to manage PPC properly and maximize results.