You could potentially lose big by marketing via a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. This much is certain. By merely taking a look at how a PPC campaign goes, you’d know that you’ll have to invest some money to be able to get some targeted traffic. How much you’ll spend would depend on two things:
1. The going rate for the keyword you have selected; and
2. The number of clicks you want to gain.
The way PPC advertising goes is that you’d enroll with a PPC program, like Google AdWords, and bid for a keyword. If you win the bid, your ad will appear every time a user will make a relevant query in a particular search engine, with such query consisting of the keyword you have chosen.
The PPC program will advertise your ad and will charge you every time a user clicks on the same. You could put a ceiling on how many clicks you want per day by determining the budget you’re willing to spend. A price of $0.50 per click, for example, would net for you 50 visitors for $25.00.
What’s so good about PPC advertising, you might ask, that makes it worth the financial investment you’re required to deposit?
Well, PPC advertising will deliver highly targeted visitors. This means that the people who will click on your ad are really interested with the subject of your website, or your product, or your service. There would be a higher likelihood of them patronizing your business because they desire the information or the benefits your enterprise could provide.
Studies show that visitors generated via PPC advertising has a high conversion rate of 12.7%, at the average. Please remember this statistic.
So, what makes PPC advertising a risky option?
It’s expensive.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll just end up flushing money down the drain, money which you could spend for the development of other aspects of your online business.
Essential in the success of a PPC marketing campaign is a solid business plan, where all the risks have been studied and all remedies to minimize the same have been implemented. This business plan can take many forms. Usually, however, online businessmen employ the following strategies:
* PPC marketing to generate visitors to a proven sales page. The sales page should have been subjected to numerous tests, and must be established as capable of converting visitors into customers. Veteran internet marketers, though, will tell you that the process of testing is one of the most tedious tasks in operating an online business.
* PPC marketing to generate visitors to an affiliate link, where the affiliate program’s sales page is established to be a proven seller. Much like the first strategy, only this time, you’ll be leading your visitors to an affiliate merchant’s sales page via your affiliate link.
* PPC marketing to generate visitors to a niche website that has a high Click Through Rate (CTR). This strategy is much akin to drinking your own blood. You’d pay for a PPC program to send you visitors, but you’ll earn from them as well via the ads on your own website which are displayed by the very same PPC program. What is important when it comes to this strategy is to make sure that your website’s CTR, vis a vis the Cost Per Click (CPC) of the ads displayed therein, would fetch for you a profit that is greater than what you tend to spend for PPC advertising. This requires continuous testing, and regular adjustments whenever appropriate.
PPC advertising can indeed bring about more success for your online business, but much preparation should be made. It is not something that you could immediately implement. Analyzing the battlefield is essential. Knowing is half the battle won, after all.
And if, by some chance, your PPC advertising campaign proves to be a dud, never hesitate to cancel it. Prudence is still the better part of valor.
Add to:
