PPC the Potential Money Pit | The Digital Clicks Blog
PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising does exactly what it says on the tin: you give your ad to an ad hosting site, and you pay them every time that ad is clicked. For example, let's take a look at Google AdSense: You give them the ad you want to run, and the websites that are hosting their ads post your ads on their website automatically. From there, when people are on these sites, they can see the ad. If it catches their attention, they click it, taking the person to your website or page, and the ad has done its job, so you pay them X amount for that click. It sounds very simple, and you're probably thinking, “Great, easy way to boost my website's traffic and revenue.” Well, yes and no. If you just let your PPC go unmanaged, it can suck in all of your online marketing funds with very little return on investment. I have been asked so many times, “How is the best way to manage my PPC campaign?” The answer normally is: Quit your day job. The reason why I say this is because PPC management can be a very time-consuming job, especially if you don’t know what you are doing. There is a lot that needs to be looked at to make sure that your return on investment is the highest it can be. For starters, proper keyword analysis: For example, using the keyword football equipment in your ad, if someone is looking for footballing equipment, your ad will come up, but for different people, footballing can mean different things. In America, for instance, their football is different than ours, so if an American person clicked your ad, got to your site, then realised that it was the wrong thing, and then left again, that’s a wasted click. But you still have to pay for it. Maybe "soccer" is a better word? Analysing your data: if you use tools to see the data from your ad, you can see the breakdown of where your clicks are coming from, so you can adjust your campaign to maximise the stats. Optimising your site or your ad links: Make sure that your ad links through to the best place on your website to make money. To make the most of your ad and increase the return on investment, you want to make sure that the percentage of people who click your ad spend money on your site or make an enquiry. Unfortunately, sometimes this is a trial-and-error ordeal and needs to be reviewed regularly. PPC can take up a lot of time and money unless done correctly. You can end up throwing endless amounts of money into a PPC campaign and see no money come back. Unlike SEO, which can take a few months to see an increase in traffic, PPC should increase your traffic overnight. If it isn’t doing this for you, you are probably not doing it right because, let's be honest, we don’t all have the time to learn how to do it properly. So get someone else to do it.