Pay Per Click Management

[Ozzy]

I will have to word this post carefully but I'm so annoyed this needs to be public.

One of my girls has just received a call from a company trying to sell us Pay Per Click management services. I wont give them the benefit of an inbound link to their website but it is www dot itscoldoutside dot com.

We don't need this service as I also have an interest in a company that already provide PPC management for my business (http://www.createanimpact.co.uk) so she wouldn't put the call through to me for obvious reasons. So the guy on the phone got aggressive on the phone, and slammed the phone down with the closing statement "Thanks for nothing you knob head".

My office manager phoned them back to complain to the Sales Manager who clearly wasnt really concerned with the behaviour of her staff but said she'll have a word with him. However the tone of her voice made it clear she doesn't see that behaviour as a problem.

This is just a statement of what has happened with no apology.

Don't use my company, use any other company apart from them as far as I am concerned. A good place to look would be http://www.seochat.com/.

[gary]

I had a call from them yesterday as well, trying to sell me natural listings! I explained to the guy on the phone that if he had bothered to look at the listings he would see we were already very well ranked! I also explained that we were also listed on the Telephone Preference Service and he shouldn't be calling me anyway. To his credit he apologised politely for bothering me and said goodbye, which was a surprise because usually these sorts of callers just hang up.

Afterwards I did a quick search for them on Google Groups - seems this has been going on for a while. They're not alone though, I still get 2 or 3 calls a week from this type of company, even after being registered on TPS. It used to be 2 or 3 a day!

[Ozzy]

I suppose its the £5,000 fine for calling a company registered on the TPS that scared him!

[winton50]

I have been considering a ppc campaign.

what does a ppc management company do exactly?

I have heard a lot of scare stories re PPC are they true? is it worth it?

[Ozzy]

Imagine you have a Google Adwords account for this example.

You may setup your account and create a single ad group with all your keywords and maybe an advert or two to display. You'll then tick the boxes so that your advert is shown on both their search network and content network.
Based on this lets say you get a 5% click through ratio and assuming you have an "average" website you get a 5% conversion ration from visitor to buyer on your website.

A good PPC management company will carry out an audit of your website first of all and give any recommendations to help convert your visitors to buyers. They will aim to try and get your conversion rate of your website to 10% or above.
They'll then take your ad campaign for Google and create a number of ad groups specific to particular keywords and search phrases, and create targets adverts to those ad groups.
This will improve your click through ratio for both the search network and content network.
They'll then monitor the conversion rates for the adverts and improve and work on them as and when necessary.

Overture, Espotting, Mirago and so on are a different kettle of fish and require slightly more management due to constantly changing bids.

If you spend around £10,000 or more a month on PPC then a management company can usually save you money in the long run. If you spend less than that a month on PPC then the costs usually outweigh the immediate savings ..... but sometimes the help in improving click through and conversaion rates are worth it.

[winton50]

So the big question is would a PPC campaign benefit a local florist?

what are the downsides?

[Ozzy]

Honestly, probably not.
Teleflorist and Interflora tend to hold the online market for florists, and have the network to handle national shipping (which you will need to backup if using PPC).

I know because I have researched this for another florist already.

[winton50]

We are a member of a national network and cam feed worldwide orders into their system. Unfortunately we only make appx20% on these so our main profit would come from local orders.

do PPC companies work on two or more keywords i.e. flowers and london?

[Ozzy]

With PPC you chose the keywords you want to be listed under then you bid for top spot. He who pays the highest gets the number 1 position.
So yes you can have any keywords you want.

[autolycus]

do PPC companies work on two or more keywords i.e. flowers and london?

Yes they do. And the advantage of bidding for something like this is that you will normally pay less per click for a high position than you would just for the generic term on its own.

For example, if you are a florist and bid on "flower delivery" you'll be bidding against every other florist on the net and so the cost per click will have to be higher to get you up the listings.

If you just want local customers then you could bid on "flower delivery camden" (or wherever). This way you will (mostly) only be competing for position with other Camden based florists so the amount you have to pay to come near the top is likely to be lower.

David.

[SillyJokes]

I never use interflora - why should I when with the power of the interweb I can just find a florist in the nearest town phone them up and order the flowers. I use Yell or just florist +town

I do this everytime - I don't see why interflora should get any money for taking an order online when it is a piece of cake to get straight to a florist shop in a faraway town and ask them to makeup exactly what you require?

With the internet available there is no longer a barrier to ordering in a town in Scotland if you live in Kent and interflora is no longer needed.

[clickprofits]

do PPC companies work on two or more keywords i.e. flowers and london?

If you are using Google adwords, make sure that you use partial and exact matching for your keyword phrases as these will increase your clickthrough rate (CTR) and lower your costs. eg for flowers london you should use:

"flowers london" (partial match)
[flowers london] (exact match)


Your ad will then show for any search containing the words flowers and london (in that order) as well as for the exact search phrase "flowers london". Make sure that you use the keyword phrase in the title and body of your ad as they will show up in bold type, which will increase clickthroughs (set up different ad groups for different ads and keywords, eg: flowers london, florists london, flowers kensington, etc).

You can use negative keywords to exclude any words:
eg:
-free
-arranging
-course

You can also use the location targeting option (regional targeting) to include the word London in an additional line at the bottom of your ad.

[Ozzy]

That is very good advice. I believe your input here is going to be most welcome :)

[MikeH]

I would agree that you should use location specific PPC. I do exactly the same as Sillyjokes. I look for a local florist that will deliver. This removes the add on cost from Interflora meaning that I can spend more on a better bunch of flowers.

Mike.

[annethedonn]

I have a google adwords campaign running and in just over a month I have had over 3500 clicks - most of which have been content targeting. Having said that, not one of these have actually contacted us so I'm wondering what use it is in the long run. Any advice would be welcome.

anne@freelanceofficeservices.co.uk

[Misstique]

What is seen as a good click through rate? (Sorry if its a dumb question)

[Ozzy]

This really depends a bit on your keywords and market, and varies between Overture, Google, Espotting, etc.

Google tends to have a lower CTR around the 5-6% mark, with Overture having around 15% for first position and dropping off below that slot.

With regards Anne, if you are getting no response from the content network I would disable it otherwise you are pouring good money after bad. Setting up an effective content served campaign is a bit of an art, and I'd recommend watching Google's training animations on this.

[WSC-Will]

A lot of PPC advertisers will concentrate on the frontline attack and forget about what happens once people click on one of their ads.

Let's say you set up a number of very specific ads for individual products that you sell. If the destination URL is to your homepage then you're effectively making the visitor find the product that they're looking for. Instead, you should be setting the destination URL so that the visitor is taken directly to the product you're promoting. After all, if your visitor is a highly qualified visitor for widget X then it makes sense that you should show them widget X first and foremost.

[clickprofits]

A lot of PPC advertisers will concentrate on the frontline attack and forget about what happens once people click on one of their ads.

Absolutely - you should have specific landing pages and then keep testing and tweaking them to increase conversions. Even a very small increase in your conversion rate can result in a large increase in profits. Use the free online conversion rate calculator to see how just a 1% increase in conversions will impact your sales. (It's in US $ but you will get the idea):
http://www.siteconvert.com

You should also ideally be tracking each keyword from click to sale to discover which are your most profitable keywords and which ones make a loss - you may be suprised a the results. There are some more good tips on landing pages in the Marketing Sherpa teleseminar recording which you can listen to (for free) online at:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tele/GTM.mp3
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2778

Another article and audio on landing pages at Marketing Experiments, which reiterates Will's advice above: - "If you are using any paid advertising (such as PPC engines) where you can choose the landing pages of your campaigns, it is essential that the visitor is directed to the most specific page related to the keyword or product they clicked on. In the majority of cases, this is NOT your homepage unless you have very few products or a small service offering".....
Full article: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/see/1041

One thing that can work well is having dynamic pages where the headline changes to match the keyword phrase that the searcher used.

Mark