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A lot of internet marketers stay clear of implementing pay-per-click advertising not only because it is quite risky but they also do not know how to set up the first PPC campaign. Although the process is easy, it can be tedious sometimes especially if you are targeting very competitive keyword phrases.
The most challenging part of the campaign is not the setting up stage, but in choosing the perfect keywords that will truly capture targeted visitors to the site. Since hits are tantamount to costs, it must be appropriately set to minimize non-relevant visitors in order to get higher return on investment.
While some veteran marketers are able to set it up within just an hour and afterwards results start coming in, novice marketers new to this type of campaign may have to spend more time at first in order to set it on the right track. Otherwise, things could go wrong especially if it is started on a bad foot forward.
Setting Up a PPC Campaign Tutorial
Open an Account
Before anything else, you have to open an account in the publishing network. This is usually free, and there are many of them to choose from such as Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo/Bing, and Google Adwords. Although you have the freedom to select the one that fits your needs, it is highly recommended to opt for the most popular one, which is Google Adwords. Thus, this ads network will be the main focus of this tutorial.
As part of the requirement in opening an account, you need to have a gmail account as well. If you don’t have one yet, then just open a free email account with gmail.
Once your account with Google Adwords is open, push the ‘Start Now’ button in the dashboard. You will then be made to choose between the Standard Edition and the Starter Edition. Select the one that fits your campaign. Afterwards, fill in the necessary information.
Choose the Type of Campaign
When you are ready to launch, you will also be required to select on the type of campaign that you would like to have. The choices are ‘Start with Placements’ and ‘Start with Keywords. For a start, it is suggested to go for the keywords. This will make your ads show up in the search engine results whenever someone searches using your target keyword phrase.
The other campaign is good for advanced users. Ads will not show up in the search engine result pages but in selected relevant sites within the network of Google. There are millions of them, and many have high page ranks with plenty of monthly visitors, thereby giving your ads better exposure. Nonetheless, you can choose the type of traffic that you want, either from organic results or targeted traffic.
Target your Audience by Location
The next step is to target the audience according to location. This is crucial since this will help you get the right kind of visitors to your site. If your offers are available only to the US market, it’s impractical and costly on your part to get visitors from other countries.
To minimize your PPC costs, you also need to reduce the number of hits from non-targeted people coming from places beyond the scope of your service. This can be done by selecting the countries that you would like to get traffic from.
If you want to target a more specific audience like those residing in a particular city or state, then make sure to include the name of the State in your keywords or in the ads. Google Adwords and some advertising networks allow you to customize your campaign by location, so you have to make use of this feature to get the right leads.
Create the Title of your Ads
One of the most critical stages is selecting the title of your ads. This is rather challenging with many experts having varying views about the title. Some groups may suggest inserting the target keywords in the title, but a few PPC experts don’t mind about keywords in the title as long as it is eye-catching and highly effective in getting the right people to click on the ads.
At first, you may not exactly get the perfect title. But after a series of tests and tweaks, you will eventually target the right audience through the title of your ads.Therefore, carefully analyse the best title. Check the titles of your competitors and match them with your own.
If you have higher budget, don’t use only one title for the entire campaign; rather, change them periodically and analyse the results. Choose with the highest conversion rate, and use that title in the succeeding campaign.
But then again, you must take note of the season of the year and some annual major events and holidays like Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving day and Black Friday deals, just to name a few. Your title must also blend well with the present season to grab more attention from your prospects and to maximize the performance of your campaign.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is not just important in PPC but in other online marketing strategies as well. This must be done properly since wrong use of keywords will lead to several unwanted consequences like low conversion, minimal sales, and low or even zero income or profits.
In pay-per-click advertising, the consequences are even much worse because your business will not only be non-profitable but huge losses may be incurred as well. That is why you need to do it right to get the perfect keywords for your campaign.
While there are premium keyword tools that you can use to maximize your efficiency, you can already do well with the keyword tool provided by Google for free. You need to keep in mind just a couple of things, though, when using the tool.
When doing the research, you are usually given an option on the results, whether you want the result-data to be based on the broad search or the exact search. This is located at the upper left side bar of the tool.
Take note that you must set it on the ‘exact’ search. This means the exact keywords are used. The broad search, on the other hand, can be long tail keywords that include your keyword phrase.
Thus, if your target keyword phrase is ‘dog food’ for instance, the results that you will get include also those who are searching for ‘processed dog food’ and ‘natural dog food’ among others. But if you opt for the ‘exact search’ the results that you will get are those you are searching for the exact keyword ‘dog food.’
So, there is a big difference here. You will notice that a particularly keyword may give an impression of having high global search, but when converted to ‘exact’ search the global searches are low enough to make your campaign ineffective with poor results.
Set Your Budget and Your Launch Date
Once you are done with the title and the catch phrase with your target keywords in it, the next step is to set your budget, as well as the date for the ads to show up. The duration of your campaign is largely influenced by your budget and the popularity of the keywords you are using.
Basically these are the standard steps that you are going to take when launching PPC to drive hits to your website. While they are quite easy to do, what makes the process harder is the tense and pressure of targeting the right audience through your ads title and body. But once you are get used to it, they will no longer be that hard enough and the process gets easier while still achieving the best results.
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