Using PPC to Promote Online Stores

Not all Pay-Per-Click campaigns are created equal. Or at least they should not be. The basic elements of a campaign can be fine-tuned according to specific business models designed to achieve maximum return on investment from Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising efforts. For online storefront owners, these adjustments can come into play during the many facets of campaign creation, ranging from modifying keyword submission strategies to developing more effective landing pages.

Initially, online storefront owners can adjust main campaign elements including keywords and listings to best fit their business needs. The keywords submitted must be relevant to their industry and include terms that revolve around the business’ main product line. In addition to bidding on main product-focused keywords, submitting additional relevant keywords, depending on the selling cycle for a product, PPC can help align Internet advertising strategies with the offline world.

Take, for example, an online storefront selling stationery, business cards and other related printing products. The storefront’s main keyword list can include products such as “greeting cards” and “business cards”. In December, the storefront’s campaign can add terms like “holiday cards” and “corporate Christmas cards” to the list of keywords that have been bid on from many different PPC advertising networks such as Searchfeed, Miva, 7Search, Kanoodle and Enhance. This can ensure increased traffic from quality seasonal leads.

While compiling advertising listings, online storefront owners can capture a visitor’s attention by providing clean, targeted titles and descriptions. This includes a keyword within the title that helps highlight an ad among a set of search results. Descriptions should include phrases directed at assisting online consumers to act quickly, simplifying the buying process. To further differentiate ads from their competitors, the inclusion of more sales-focused phrases like “free shipping” or “free gift with every purchase” could also motivate online consumers to click on an ad over their competitors, thereby boosting online sales.

Landing pages are often overlooked as a main campaign component but they can be the centerpiece of an effective campaign if properly developed. Since a potential customer has already expressed interest by clicking on a PPC ad, this page must be used to convert that lead time into a sale by including information regarding the exact product or service mentioned in the PPC ad. For instance, if an Internet user clicked on an ad for roller skates and was then directed to a general page on children’s toys, it would be less likely for that lead to be converted into a sale because the link did not provide the user access to the specific information that was queried in their original search.

“Having a landing page that includes specific product information and a means to purchase that product such as a dedicated product page with the information and online shopping card can help online storefront owners convert more efficiently PPC sales leads,” said Elena Krivoruchko, Searchfeed.com's Advertiser Relations Director.

Overall, there are many tactics that can be utilized by online storefront owners to help receive the best possible results from PPC campaigns. This includes adjusting each part of the campaign to meet specific sales models and incorporating retail trends to reflect business goals in hopes of achieving maximum results from online advertising efforts.

The Allure of PPC for Small Biz

There are good reasons why many webmasters and website owners choose to pay for visitors to their website as opposed to the involved and often grueling method of search engine optimization. Improper SEO may not only waste time and resources, there is never a guarantee that what your site is optimized for will result in actual sales or conversions.
Advertising on bid for placement networkscan help ensure that you get what you pay for and pay as little as possible to do it.

How You Know if Pay Per Click is Right for You
The single biggest mistake most PPC advertisers make is paying a higher amount for visitors than they can afford. Pay per click search engines are ideal to generate traffic if you already know what it costs to generate one sale or conversion. By not going over their predetermined amount, advertisers can dramatically increase the likelihood of their websites' success.

High-End Pay Per Click is Not Right For You if…
There are millions of websites online but only a small percentage of these sites can benefit from the traffic that high-end PPC resources such as Google Adwords or Overture provide. When it comes to generating conversions from the top-tier of PPC's, low profit margin categories of business (members of affiliate programs for example) would do well to avoid higher priced bid for placement search engines (as bid prices are often too high) and focus on 2nd tier pay per click services or vertical portals working on a bid for placement model.

How to Choose A PPC That is Right For Your Campaign
When choosing a PPC campaign for your website, take into account not only bid prices, but traffic volume, customer service and account management tools.

Check Bid Prices
A significant mistake that novice PPC advertisers make is to jump immediately into the largest advertising networks, namely Google Adwords and Overture. While these PPC's certainly have the most extensive reach, bid prices per visitor are higher than any other network and can easily drain your account before even one visitor converts. Check bid prices before signing on anywhere and match as closely as possible to what you have determined you can pay for each website visitor.

Inquire about Customer Service
No thanks to their size, larger PPC's usually have much less attentive customer service (unless you are one of the larger advertisers - this means spending $10,000 a month or more). Many second tier PPC's pride themselves on their attentive customer service. Always ask your PPC company if they can help advise you before and during your campaign to ensure the highest ROI.

Investigate the "Reach"
Bid for placement search engines (PPC) are simply advertising networks that help you spread your message to their users. As some PPC networks have greater access to more users, it is important to investigate the reach not only of their own network but the network size of their partners. When speaking with sales or customer representatives ask for a list of their partners.

Top Tips for Success with PPC
There have been many small business website owners who have lost their proverbial shirts with bid for placement advertising. Case study after case study has shown that the reason that most fail with PPC is a lack of understanding on how to maximize the bid for placement model to their advantage across various networks simultaneously. Here are a few tips to make the most of an online advertising campaign using a PPC methodology:

1) PPC success resides in your titles and descriptions:
Well-written titles and descriptions can make or break a PPC advertising campaign the same way they affect traditional search return listings. The most important thing to keep in mind when writing titles and descriptions is that you are not only speaking directly to the searcher, you have an obligation to explain your product or service so that it either elicits a positive response sufficient enough to motivate them to click or discourage them from clicking altogether if what you are offering is not what they are actually looking for. When writing titles and descriptions, focus on the specifics of what that user will find at your site, i.e. special deals or discounts, signup information for a newsletter, registration for an e-book, etc.

2) Use Specific Terms for Specific Pages
By bidding on specific terms related to your business and directing visitors to specific pages which represent those terms, conversion rates on this practice increase dramatically. Imagine conducting a search and finding a great title and description but then having to go through hundreds of page to locate the information. When “landing pages” are created which offer information on what the surfer originally searched for, chances are that they will take the action you want them to, whether it be signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product. A common rule of thumb is to have no more than fifty terms per page that you are promoting on a PPC.

3) Be Passive or Aggressive, but be something.
Most PPC advertisers are either passive PPC players or aggressive marketers. The secret behind PPC marketing is that these networks’ partner with other networks to display advertisers’ advertisements. So the higher you bid on a PPC, the better placement you will receive on network/partner sites. Bidding in this manner makes you an aggressive PPC marketer and the advantages are many and include – more traffic and more exposure to target markets.

If a small website (or one of a low profit-margin category of business) decides that the traffic that each PPC network alone provides is sufficient, managers of the campaign must be aware of their bid amounts (overbidding or underbidding) as well as what can afford to pay for each visitor. Usually the top four positions are where most of the traffic is received from - the highest percentage of total clicks (thanks to partner networks). The number of clicks in your account will usually decrease incrementally based on your bid.

PPC advertising has proven to be a productive method of generating traffic (and more importantly) sales or conversions for many webmasters and web site owners. If you are thinking about trying your hand at pay per click, make sure to use the tips outlined in this article and ask others PPC advertisers if they have any advice!