Advice wanted regarding PPC

[RyanJ]

Hello UKBF.

I'm going to be starting a PPC campaign in the next few days for local removals. I constantly read either that companies have received a great return or either lost all their money to the giant of Google. I am going to be using Bing and Google. Starting on a low budget and would like to use exact match keywords to avoid a complete loss. Exact match will probably be removals [location] or [location] removals. I am starting small so I want to be extra careful. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[UKcentric]

Set a budget cap on your spend.

Don't go on the first day's results. Keep it running at least a month, then review.

Keep a close eye on Cost Per Click.

Don't expect not to lose the lot in the first few months.

Most people have to spend a lot of money to start getting results. It's a learning curve.

 

[Tommyr]

Hello UKBF.

I'm going to be starting a PPC campaign in the next few days for local removals. I constantly read either that companies have received a great return or either lost all their money to the giant of Google. I am going to be using Bing and Google. Starting on a low budget and would like to use exact match keywords to avoid a complete loss. Exact match will probably be removals [location] or [location] removals. I am starting small so I want to be extra careful. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
we had lots of troubles with this but one day we got a slimey sales call from a company called PPC Response promisng to transform the account.

I bit the bullet and tried them and they were actually very good.

I would recomened them. I learnt a hell of a lot from their time and we have had quite cost effective success with these guys. Maybe give them a call

 

[NineteenPounds]

Geographical location will be key for you here I imagine, assuming your not a nationwide business (yet).

Also, you might want to use a dedicating landing page rather than delivering the potential customers to your home page?

You hit the nail on the head though IMO when you said start small, as PPC is such a quick learning curve (hopefully quick anyway).

Scott.

Hello UKBF.

I'm going to be starting a PPC campaign in the next few days for local removals. I constantly read either that companies have received a great return or either lost all their money to the giant of Google. I am going to be using Bing and Google. Starting on a low budget and would like to use exact match keywords to avoid a complete loss. Exact match will probably be removals [location] or [location] removals. I am starting small so I want to be extra careful. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Fresh Dimension Media]

Hello UKBF.

I'm going to be starting a PPC campaign in the next few days for local removals. I constantly read either that companies have received a great return or either lost all their money to the giant of Google. I am going to be using Bing and Google. Starting on a low budget and would like to use exact match keywords to avoid a complete loss. Exact match will probably be removals [location] or [location] removals. I am starting small so I want to be extra careful. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Just a few pointers before you begin. If you only have a small budget, unless you have tons of time to waste, I'd stick solely with Google - the numbers just aren't there for a local business. Bing has its place, but I wouldn't recommend this based on your comments so far.

If you're being extra careful and are on a low budget, I'd recommend you bid higher and test between running your ads just in the mornings, just in the evenings or just in the afternoons. You're far better off showing your ads in positions 1-3 for a third of the day than at position 7-10 all day.

Before you run your ads, take a look at your competition. Are there any offers there likely to cause you an issue - i.e. are they considerably cheaper, more responsive than you? Think about how YOU can appeal to people searching and not just be another removal company. Moving is stressful - empathise with your audience. You get the idea - think about what would matter to you if you were moving. Ask your friends and family... you'll be surprised, it's not all about "cheap".

How good is your website? Does it communicate how well you do removals? How you can meet the needs of those visiting? Is it easy to contact/enquire with you? Do you price match? Glowing Testimonials?

Everything needs to work in harmony - great traffic is wasted on a poor website. A great website is wasted with no traffic... good luck and let us know how you get on.

 

[Arronz]

Even more important than the spend and Adwords account, set up proper KPIs for conversion rate and goals, such as registration, sending emails or sales, then test your landing page to see which one converts best. Otherwise even you can get great conversion rate on Google, you don't get enough conversion on your site.

 

[Alan]

Forget Bing for now.

Running on from above
link your Adwords account to your Google Analytics.

Set conversion Goals in G-Analytics and also install the conversion code from Adwords on the appropriate conversion event as you need to extrapolate between the two.

You may want to think about having a campaign on broad and a different campaign on exact. The advantage on broad is you gather data on what actaully is working and then you can move the exact terms in to the 'exact' campaign. e.g. if your budget is £10 a day set the broad to £7 day to start with and reduce it over time as you 'mine' the keywords.

Don't create too many ads in each campaign, ideally just have two, on even rotation, to see which one gets the better conversion. After a while dump the poor performing ad and write a better on see if you can out perform the other.

Make sure that you set your target locations in the campaign settings.

Make sure that you set search network only, not serach & GDN.

If you go GDN route do it as another campaign, but ideally you want graphics on the GDN.

If you are thinking of outsourcing, please consider that any agancy that is actually going to actively manage your account will have to be charging at least £250 per month. If they are cheaper, ask yourself why?

 

[Peter Bowen]

You probably don't want to hear this but I don't think Google Adwords is suitable for DIY anymore. Especially in a competitive market like the removals business.

It's not that the marketing doesn't work, it's just that the learning you'll need to do is likely to be really expensive. (Having said that, I'm sure many people will chime in with their own success stories and tell me what an idiot I am. )

I get awfully excited about the subject here: http://www.pete-bowen.com/google-adwords/google-adwords-not-diy-anymore/

 

[directmarketingadvice]

You probably don't want to hear this but I don't think Google Adwords is suitable for DIY anymore.

I agree. I used to recommend people have a go themselves, but it's become too opaque over the last couple of years, and one wrong move (one you might not even realise you're making) could wreck your quality scores and make it almost impossible to be competitive.

If someone does do it themselves, I'd recommend they read Adwords for Dummies. It's a bit out of date (even the most recent version), but the price of the book is nothing compared to the money it'll save you in mistakes avoided.

Steve

 

[redrosephotos]

My experience of PPC as a newbie was quite guarded which allowed me to dip my toe in the water and see whether it was for me or not. Ultimately it wasn't but for many businesses it will be so it's definately worth the effort to see if can work for you because if it does it can be an effective income stream.

My tips would be -

1. Set a daily budget so there's no possibility of things going really wrong and you losing a fortune.
2. Use exact match words then progress to phrase match. PPC is very much about experimenting in the first few weeks and you need that time to see what does or doesn't work. The statistics availablle are endless but you need to get the results in over a couple of weeks at least before you can start to see trends etc.
3. On from the above, set google analytics up on your site and link it to your PPC account. This information will be invaluable in telling you who is visiting off what keyword, where they go on your site, how long they stay.

Ultimately it's trial and error and I think it's worth that effort to see if you can make it work for you. The main thing is to keep your parameters tight at the start and move out from there.

 

[Haragones]

The world of PPC campaigns is an complicated maze of keywords, bidding, and conversion charts. Although these campaigns can be extremely effective in routing traffic toward your site, they can also leave even the most computer-savvy marketer puzzled. If you have the drive and determination to build a successful PPC campaign from the bottom up, here are some simple steps to get your campaign off the ground.


[FONT=&quot]1. Set a area within your budget.[/FONT]

2. Find a search engine.

3. Bid on keywords.

4. Consider outsourcing.

5. Adapt your landing page.

6. Track the results.

The only way you will know if your PPC campaign is working is if you track the number of users to your site and take note of how many of that click-through actually result in deals. The search engine you are joined with will likely provide software to help you track the results of your campaign.

 

[Fresh Dimension Media]

The world of PPC campaigns is an complicated maze of keywords, bidding, and conversion charts. Although these campaigns can be extremely effective in routing traffic toward your site, they can also leave even the most computer-savvy marketer puzzled. If you have the drive and determination to build a successful PPC campaign from the bottom up, here are some simple steps to get your campaign off the ground.


[FONT=&quot]1. Set a area within your budget.[/FONT]

2. Find a search engine.

3. Bid on keywords.

4. Consider outsourcing.

5. Adapt your landing page.

6. Track the results.

The only way you will know if your PPC campaign is working is if you track the number of users to your site and take note of how many of that click-through actually result in deals. The search engine you are joined with will likely provide software to help you track the results of your campaign.

{Rant Alert!} Wow, that was informative - especially point 2. Can anybody here suggest a search engine? . Can I also take it that being helpful at point 4, most people are so confused once they've placed their first bid that the logical next phase it to outsource?

Words fail me. If you're going to promote yourself, just come straight out with it instead of posting incoherent BS. {Rant Over!}

 

[Doodled]

Right...

Bit of a catch 22 here. I advise many companies on how to use PPC but I'm fairly new to this particular forum so don't want to do anything too self promotional.

On Amazon I have a book "Making the most of Google Adwords" which steers people like you through exactly the issues you are facing - how to avoid spending without earning and all that jazz.

It's around 30,000 words long which is basically what I should put in this post to answer the question correctly - so as they say "better buy the book"

 

[Alan]

{Rant Alert!} Wow, that was informative - especially point 2. Can anybody here suggest a search engine? . Can I also take it that being helpful at point 4, most people are so confused once they've placed their first bid that the logical next phase it to outsource?

Words fail me. If you're going to promote yourself, just come straight out with it instead of posting incoherent BS. {Rant Over!}

Well it was OK as a first post, not as bad as many 1 liners you get.
2. Find a search engine.
You at least need to go through a though process, costs per click on Bing are cheaper than Google, there is a reason for that of course, less competition, but you may consider that for your product or service Bings might be better than Google.
Also if you broaded 'Search Engine' to 'Platform', then you can entertain the concept of considering Facebook / Linked-In. They may get surprising results.

4. Consider outsourcing.
Of course consider outsourcing. PPC is complex and you have the ability to throw money down the drain, any business needs to consider if they should be doing things in-house or out of house. For instance, in theory I can prepare my own accounts, however I choose to use an account for reasons that I have considered.

And the points about tracking conversions are critcal, as you can't improve something you can't measure. If you did outsource to a reputable agency they would ensure that you had the appropriate conversion tracking & analytics in place.

 

[DPOM]

Lots of good advice here so I won't repeat much of it.

Set realistic expectations: you are unlikely going to see amazing results in month 1 but as you spend a couple of months understanding what keywords convert and which ones don't (add negatives) then you'll start lifting performance.

I think the main problem I see with self managed AdWords Campaigns is the lack of management, you need to regularly try new things (new ad copy, new keywords for example) and then wait for results. You need to regularly add negative keywords to reduce wasted clicks and take these from your search query report (no point bidding on keywords that never convert or are not relevant) and then start looking at landing pages and by that I mean experiment with different content, you can even use services such as Optimzely to run "automated" experiments to see which landing page variations do best.

A good place to start would be having a look through Google's own guides.

 

[F1SEO]

Agreed with above:

- review your keywords coming through often.
- add negative keywords, because this will increase your CTR
- increasing your CTR will increase your quality score
- so not only will you get cheaper clicks but you will also get maximum enquiries for each pound invested
- setup 2 ads and allow them to rotate
- after 1 week review and Google will show you the CTR of each ad
- pause the one with lower CTR and write a new ad
- let them run together, then 1 week after pause the one with lower CTR. repeat
- the idea is to gradually evolve the CTR so that you get the maximum efficiency and lowest cost

Quality score is ideally in the range of 6-10 (preferably 10)

Lower quality scores (3-4) mean that you're going to pay the highest amount per click

Quality scores of 2 means that you will get a warning from Google that your ad & keywords & website are not right and you will not be shown on page 1.

 

[Kempres]

Hi,

I'm far from an expert as I've just come out of shopping centres, started a website about 2 months ago when I barely knew how to turn on a computer and currently get about 15 visits a day and no sales.
Yet.
From all the reading I've done- and that's a lot...it sounds like PPC only works if 1) You are massive and loaded or 2) You are niche and won't have many competitors outbidding you for keywords.
What I have been doing for the last 2 months, on advice through speaking to people and reading a lot, is listing my websites on as many, good, business directories as possible.
I've been told many times that it's a long game and paying for a quick result, unless you can afford it, will not bring long-term benefits.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

From all the reading I've done- and that's a lot...it sounds like PPC only works if 1) You are massive and loaded or 2) You are niche and won't have many competitors outbidding you for keywords.

So, if you're not niche and have competitors outbidding you, are you saying that means those competitors must be losing money on their ads?

Steve

 

[Kempres]

Hi,

Like I say I'm no expert, I'm basically a face-to-face retailer trying to become an online retailer, so I read all over the place to try and pick up tips and learn what to do.

It just seems like organic promotion is better than paying for advertising, unless you have the budget to keep it running and the time to monitor the changing trends.

 

[Kempres]

I've started a Facebook PPC Campaign today.
I'm doing £3.50 a day for 4 days.
Target is Website Clicks.
I've specified age, location and keywords so lets see!