Anyone can set up a pay-per-click campaign. But making it work to your best advantage takes some knowledge and strategy.  Here are three strategies that can maximize the results you get from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

1. Test, Test, Test
Pay-per-click is an advertising medium like no other – it offers immediate gratification. In Google AdWords, for example, you can set up your campaign and start seeing activity within minutes.

Harnessing this immediacy to your advantage is one strategy that can ensure that your campaign is as effective as it could be. You can do this by testing as many aspects of the campaign as possible.

What should you test? There are many variables of your campaign you can test, but here are two important examples.

• Test Ad Copy
  One of the primary factors that influences conversion is your ad copy. Make sure that you have it right. How to do this? Write several ads for a keyword and rotate them to see how your results change. Google AdWords can do this for you automatically. Drop the ads that are not performing.
   
• Test Match Options
  Another factor influencing PPC effectiveness is the matching options you select. Test the rules by which your ads are displayed when a given keyword is input by a searcher.
  
  Broader match options tend to work better for more specific, multi-word terms, while more exact matches help target one or two word searches.
  
  Though it makes sense to use the broader match option for more specific keywords and more specific options for more general keywords, every business and every pool of target keywords is different. Test the different matching options with your keywords and see how your results change. You don’t want to be too exact and have your ad not show for some potentially lucrative keyword combinations. Nor do you want to be too general and suffer wasted clicks from keywords that are not related to your business.
  
  Don’t forget to research negative keyword matches, too. Keeping updated negative keyword lists can really increase the targeted clicks you receive versus wasted clicks. For example, a negative keyword list for Apple Computer might be “orchards”, “trees,” “cider,” etc.

Testing your campaign can turn a mediocre campaign into a stellar one. Test to know what works and what doesn’t.

2. Actively Manage Your Campaign
Another important strategy for your pay-per-click campaign is to monitor it actively. Though some advertisers out there monitor with the zeal of a day trader, this does not have to be an overwhelming, time-consuming task. Here are three items you should actively look at to ensure that your campaign remains effective.

• Seasonality – though you likely know if there is seasonal changes in demand for your product or service, a pay-per-click campaign will tell you exactly how that seasonality is reflected online. Measure the traffic and click activity of your campaign versus your assumptions on seasonality. Seeing a new spike and investing more advertising in a period you thought was traditionally slow could provide a significant boost to your online business.
   
• Competitor activity – none of us advertise in a bubble. Your competitors are out there doing what they can to get a larger piece of the pie, and that could include your potential customers. Keep a close watch on competitor activity and have a plan in advance for how you will respond to competitor moves. If a competitor moves to take the number one slot in your top five keywords, can you afford to go head-to-head? If not, what will you do? Monitor your competitors, define potential scenarios and decide how you will respond.
   
• Consumer activity – it is essential to monitor competitors, but more importantly how are your target customers behaving? Changes in search terms used, decreases in searches due to seasonality or abrupt events (end of a sale offer, for example) will all influence your campaign. Sometimes identifying a shift in consumer behavior and adjusting accordingly can add percentage points to your conversion rate.

3. You Don’t Have To Be Number One
Being at the top of all sponsored results would be ideal for many advertisers. But it is not always affordable. To tell the truth, is it really necessary?

In July the Internet Advertising Bureau released a study showing that top rankings for PPC advertising generates strong brand recognition. Furthermore, a recent Atlas institute study cites a tenfold increase in traffic between the tenth PPC position and the first.

Knowing this, how do you decide what positioning works best for your company? Of course, if you can afford to stay in the first position for your critical keywords, then you are in great shape. But normally competitor activity, searcher trends, and bid price escalation tend to make it difficult for most organizations to pursue this strategy.

If branding is your primary PPC strategy, then certainly paying for the top position is shown by research to be significant. But this is no different from other media, such as television or newspaper. Obtaining that level of brand recognition if you are in a competitive product category can get expensive.
When sales are your primary PPC objective, you have a little more wiggle room to test the other positions. Measure your sales conversions when you pay for the second, third, fourth rankings, etc. Is there a position where the amount you pay provides the best return versus the amount of conversion?

That is your sweet spot. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that some pay-per-click partners (AOL is a partner of Google and distributes their ads, for example) only take a certain number of the rankings. So if you need to be distributed to partners, don’t go below those positions.

You do not have to be at the top to have the best campaign. Often a campaign with an expanded list of keywords in third or fourth positions can generate the same amount of traffic and conversion as a campaign with limited keyword in top position at a fraction of the cost. Find your sweet spot.

Finally, track your results. All the major pay-per-click advertising providers, including Google AdWords and Overture, provide a means to track conversion. Often it simply requires you to place some script on the pages of your site you wish to track. For example, the “Thank you for your order” page if you have a shopping cart or a reservation form is a good location for the script; you can measure how many visitors completed an order.

Tracking conversions allows you to make accurate, sales-based decisions based on your testing. Measure exactly what is working and what isn’t. But most importantly, you can ascertain your overall return on investment of your advertising. How much have you spent, and how much have you made?

Test, measure, and evaluate…test, measure, and evaluate.
 

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