How to set the right budget for PPC?

[Axxe]

Greetings my Friends,

I‘m planning to go for Googles‘ adwords again, but have one problem with it.
Last time I went on PPC I could not set the right budget for my campaign so know folks I‘m asking for your advice.
Is there any rules which could teach me to set the right budget or I just have to figer it out by myself? :|

Cheers,
Donatas

[2Dmedia_Mike]

Its all relative to your business sector. I did some work with a Building / Land surveying company, basically I made their site with SEO in mind, and then started them off with a PPC campaign. We started quite high (considering they are quite a small company, you dont want to be turning work down) at approx £10 a day, with most keywords at 20p a click. This put them on the first page and generally in the top 3 sponsored results.

The problem with SEO to get a site to rank in the free listings, is that it can take time, and also alot of work to get other sites to link to you. PPC is deffinately a good way of getting business, however make sure that you keep track of it, because although it may get you 30 hits a day, those hits might all be useless and be wasting your money.

So choose your keywords carefully... for example this surveying company wanted Building surveyors as a main keyword. As a result they ended up getting alot of enquiries which were dead leads because it was the wrong sort of building surveying.

I guess what im saying is, yes you do have to figure it out yourself, because each sector type is different... hopefully Ive pointed out a few of the main issues for you to keep an eye on though ;) Personally my advice is to try and get your site ranking in the free listings!

[Axxe]

Thanks Mike,

Agree with you about free listing (it’s really effective and cheep too). I‘m working on it all the time. But you see we have a new product here, which we must sell really quick and getting high rankings with free listing on new product would be highly complicated so that’s why I‘m going into AdWords.

Once again thank you for your advice it is very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Donatas

[Words of Magic]

Most people bid on the obvious expensive keywords, but from my experience if you do thorough keyword research you can find highly searched similar terms for pennies which the competition has either overlooked or to lazy to do the extra work. Keywords which are non converting, delete them immediately, you can save up to 40%-80% in costs.

Here are some free tools to help you with your keyword research:

www.nichebot.com
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/USm...tools/bidtool/ (view bid prices)
http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/ (approx number searches per keyword)

When choosing keywords, you should know atleast, how many searches it receives per month, approx cost of buying the keyphrase & how many competing google ad's are running. A free method for finding out how many competing ad's are running...Type in your keyword, make a note of the first google ad and begin to click page 2, page 3 etc, while counting each ad until you return to the very first ad listed on page 1 of google.

Note: Makesure you know your numbers when your setting up an adwords campaign, for example: The value per visitor and your profit margin. Therefore you can workout the maximum amount you can pay for keywords, to still break even and reach your profit margin. Also dont fly blind and makesure you track everything.

Wishing you all the success in the world,

[Axxe]

Morning Paul,

Thanks for your advice. It is really very helpful.

Ps. Second link you gave me does not work maybe you can repeat it. Thanks.
Is it overture tool? Cause as I now it only shows yahoo bids.

Take care,
Donatas

[Malcolm Cooper]

Work out what each unique visitor is worth to you. Say 500 uniques per day and 1% of them spend £20. Your turnover is £100 (or if you're vat registered £85.10). The goods have cost you £50 and you've charged for P&P so you made £35.10. In this example each click was worth 7p return on investment. If you therefore pay 8p per click you're losing money.

[Words of Magic]

I do apologise, hopefully the 2nd link should work now:

http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/USm/search/tools/bidtool/index.jhtml?Keywords=stop+hair+loss&verifyCode=FGFC&mkt=us&lang=en_US&Partner=userbidtool

This is the overture tool and although it only shows you yahoo bids, it gives you a rough guidance, the cost per keyphrase.

Wishing you all the success in the world,