Reader Request - Getting Traffic with Pay Per Click Ads

You might find this a little negative because I will be right up front with you… 

I am not a fan of entrepreneurs that are just starting the search for targeted web traffic to use pay per click traffic as a primary source — unless you have lots of dough to start with.

I can’t teach you to do pay per click ads in a single blog post.  In fact, I have never had great success with pay per click.

When I first got started…

I was like most, I didn’t know how to get website traffic, targeted or un-targeted.  I was easily drawn to PPC (pay per click), and I could not do it correctly.

You probably have done the same as I did - got an experts book, then tried to do it, then it didn’t work.  Pay per click emptied my already empty pockets as fast as I could change the ads.

Then, even as I lost what cash I had left, I hired a “professional” pay per click service, who emptied everything else out of my pockets.

To do pay per click well, fast, and with results, you need good tools.  You need to know what your competition is doing, and then…

You must duplicate it!

So I am really in tune with you.  To picture yourself inside your competition’s Google ads every time you do a search, you only need 2 free tools:

You already know what a browser is, and with the Firefox Browser and PPC Web Spy, you can see exactly what Google Adword keyword and keyword phrases your completion is using and the results they are getting.

So, I can’t tell you how to write the best ads for adwords pay per click, but you can have a completely free way to get the keywords that work and give results.

If you are going to pursue pay per click targeted traffic on your own, the get the free tools above.

Pay-per-click Advertising: Top 6 Rookie Mistakes

Here is a quick list of the top 6 pay-per-click advertising mistakes that I’ve seen. I suggest that you print this list and go through it before you start your next pay-per-click campaign.

1. Check for Strange Keywords. You may have accidentally typed-in or pasted an incorrect keyword into your keyword list. Sort keywords alphabetically, skim through the list and make sure you didn’t accidentally miss a space in your keywords or add an incorrect term.

2. Check Destination URLs. This is probably the most common mistake (and also the most costly one). Search engines will continue sending traffic to your site regardless of whether your destination URL works or not. If your campaigns are suddenly not performing like they should, I suggest checking your destination URLs.

3. Copy Negative Keywords. Negative keyword optimization is your best friend in pay-per-click because it greatly reduces paying for clicks that don't relate to your products. Make sure you copy your negative keywords from one campaign to another before launching the new campaign.

4. Check Campaign/Ad Group Geo Settings. Different search engines have different default settings. For example, Yahoo! defaults to Canada/U.S. targeting. Microsoft targets the entire world by default. Make sure you check your geo-targeting settings to ensure that your ads show in places where people can actually buy what you sell.

5. Turn Off Content Network Ads. You should never have search traffic and content traffic going through the same campaign. Content network distribution should be set up in a separate campaign, if you choose to employ this strategy at all.

6. Check Landing Pages. Have you checked your landing pages lately? Roughly ten percent of the landing pages that I see have some sort of technical mistake. Make sure you don’t get any browser errors on your pages. Check whether the contact form works properly. Check how your pages render in different browsers (nifty tool:BrowserShots).

Pay per Click Advertising – An Internet Advertising

Pay per Click is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market.

Websites that utilize pay per click ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Google Ad Words, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft ad Center are the three largest network operators, and pay per click providers and all three operate under a bid-based model.

There are two primary models for determining cost per click: flat rate and bid-based. In both cases, the advertiser must consider the potential value of a click from a given source.

There are several points that make pay per click advertising a vital part of your business. The most important reason for you to begin a pay per click advertising campaign is to lure customers away from our competitors. A great advantage is the fact that with pay per click advertising we will be able to have a top position for our ads right from the beginning. Pay per click advertising will increase exposure for our website.

There are various reasons for the growing Popularity of Pay per Click Management it can save the money. This is because only those who actually click through on our ad need to be paid for. Advertisers are not charged for advertising but are charged only when interested visitors click on their link. This relevancy made the advertising option affordable and meaningful for all advertisers

Pay per click advertising can provide instant traffic to our website. Traffic generated by pay per click advertising is usually more targeted than from organic results because webmasters can control the keywords. Pay per click advertising offers us greater control and flexibility than regular search engines.

There are some pitfalls and disadvantages to using pay per click advertising companies. If there were no disadvantages to this advertising, then everyone would be using this method; yet, many Internet marketers do not use it.

Many people have lost thousands of pounds on pay per click advertising by simply not having a clear understanding of the complexity involved. It takes a while to learn how to bid properly, create compelling ads that are relevant and using these methods effectively in a marketing campaign.

Pay per click advertising is something everyone should test the water on, before jumping in, head first.

Survey Results: Advertising is Important, Pay-per-click Most Effective

Respondents to an April 2009 Practical eCommerce survey overwhelmingly said that pay-per-click advertising was an effective way to promote an ecommerce store and improve sales. Those same respondents also declared advertising an important part of their ecommerce business.

The survey found that 79.3 percent of those participating believed that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was an effective way to increase sales, with 27.6 percent of those same respondents saying PPC advertising was "very effective."

The survey asked Practical eCommerce readers to grade various advertising methods based on how effective they were at increasing online sales or increasing web traffic. The advertising methods queried were PPC ads, banner advertising, online rich media, online video, podcasts, print advertising, radio ads, television ads, catalogs, and direct mail. But PPC greatly exceeded the alternatives as the most favored method for both driving web traffic and closing sales. In fact, when asked if they purchased a particular form of advertising, 85.7 percent of respondents said they bought PPC, placing a vote of confidence with their hard earned dollars.

Advertising Is Important

The survey also showed how important advertising is to ecommerce retailers. In a question about whether advertising was important and why, respondents unanimously said that advertising was extremely important.

"Yes advertising is important," said a survey respondent from California. "We focus online because that's where our customers are. Social networking and Twitter are effective. People have to know you before they'll give you their money."

"Absolutely advertising is important!" said another survey respondent, who also criticized the survey itself. "Outside of PR, advertising is the most cost effective way of getting your message out to a mass audience. PS: This survey could have been designed much better...both in the questions and responses."

Half of Respondents Bought Print Advertising

Perhaps surprisingly, 50 percent of those responding said that they purchased print advertising. In harder economic times, print advertising has suffered, with eMarketer and others reporting a 5 percent drop in magazine advertising spend in 2009 compared to the prior year. What's more, many of those surveyed did not believe that printed advertising was an effective vehicle, with 29.6 percent saying that print was not effective for driving web traffic and 34.6 percent believing that print ads were no help when it comes to selling products.

Direct Mail Also Popular

Some 54.6 percent of those surveyed devoted part of their advertising and promotional budgets to direct mail. This was a greater percentage than those that purchased online banner advertising (44.4 percent), rich media ads (37.5), or online video (36 percent).

Pay-Per-Click Web Advertisers Combat Costly Fraud

GIVEN the state of the automobile industry and the economy, it is understandably a rough time to run a company called NewCars.com, a subsidiary of Cars.com.

As the company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., tries to ride out the economic downturn, the last thing it needs is to get tricked by people trying to game the online pay-per-click advertising system.

But, according to Cars.com, that is what has been happening. Over the last year, a substantial number of clicks on NewCars .com ads have come from Bulgaria, Indonesia and the Czech Republic, countries where the company does no business.

In pay-per-click, advertisers pay a search engine every time a Web surfer clicks on their links; click fraud refers to clicks made simply to make money for the sites that carry the links or to damage a competitor.

Marketers say the situation is worsening because of the economic downturn.

“Click fraud is a serious problem, and we’re aggressively trying to fight it,” said Isabel Sopoglian, vice president of online marketing for Cars.com. “In this tough time, it’s important for advertisers to not waste dollars.”

But according to the click fraud detection business Click Forensics, marketers are wasting more money than ever. Because of the troubled economy, companies have shifted their advertising dollars to more cost-effective formats like pay-per-click advertising, which was the only form of Internet advertising that grew last year. It accounted for 57 percent of Internet advertising in 2008, up from 52 percent in 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing online advertisers.

“The recession caused more companies to shift dollars to pay-per-click advertising because it’s a more effective and measurable form of advertising, and the rise in the ad dollars increased the click fraud rate,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “These issues combined meant more customers turning to us for help.”

Click Forensics, based in Austin, Tex., concluded that in the fourth quarter of 2008, 17 percent of all online ad clicks were fraudulent. Google and Yahoo are the two biggest pay-per-click ad networks.

Search engines like Google say that they have the problem under control. Google says that advertisers contend that fraudulent clicks account for just 0.02 percent of all online activity. If Google and an advertiser agree that a click is fraudulent, it offers the advertiser a credit.

(In 2006, Google settled a $90 million lawsuit after advertisers argued that it had not given them adequate compensation for fraudulent online ad clicks.)

“We are working hard as ever” to protect customers from fraud “and to innovate to detect click fraud,” said Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google’s business product manager of trust and safety. “And we’re getting fewer questions from advertisers about click fraud.”

Reggie Davis, vice president of network quality for Yahoo, says he believes that Google’s click fraud rate of less than 1 percent is not accurate. “We’ve disclosed that our rate, before hiring Click Forensics, was between 12 and 15 percent,” a number that includes invalid clicks, or traffic that an advertiser should not pay for, he said. According to Outsell Inc., an information industry research group, 13 percent of the total of online advertising clicks were fraudulent last year.

“Click fraud should be at the top of the priority list with Obama and the F.T.C.,” said Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, an advocacy group. “The F.T.C. has seriously lagged in coming to grips with the problems surrounding the online ad market, specifically click fraud. It’s extremely important to address the problem because it ultimately affects the consumers, meaning what they end up paying.”

One of the challenges of click fraud detection is distinguishing genuine clicks from fraudulent ones. Indicators of click fraud include suspicious activities from an Internet Protocol (I.P.) address — the address assigned to every computer that uses the Internet — in a region the advertiser does not serve, or a large number of clicks in a short period. For instance, a clicker might view 10 pages on a site but spend exactly 2.1 seconds on each page.

Click fraud continues to be fueled by Web sites that offer to pay people to click on ads to artificially increase revenue. These networks can hide behind servers that mask the click’s origin.

Other networks are much easier to find. Some companies offer to pay consumers to click on ads, often advertising their services as market research or system testing. They solicit people via e-mail messages and banner ads.

Click Forensics contends that, on average, its technology cuts a client’s click fraud by more than 60 percent in a month. The company says it saves its customers, on average, more than 10 percent of their total online ad spending.

Click fraud represented 20 percent of NewCars.com’s overall ad spending on Yahoo in 2007, according to the automotive company. It declined to disclose how much it spent on advertising. The number dropped to just 7 percent after NewCars.com hired Click Forensics last year and Yahoo made vigorous efforts to combat the problem, Ms. Sopoglian said.

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Click Forensics has more than 120 customers, including Intel, Progressive andZappos.com.

Click Forensics is one of a number of businesses that try to eliminate, or at least curtail, click fraud. AdWatcher, part of the Internet marketing company MordComm Inc., tracks when an ad has been clicked on five or more times from the same I.P. address and will show a warning message to the visitor that his or her address has been logged. Anchor Intelligence, a click fraud detection company based in Mountain View, Calif., works with 30 partner ad networks and search engines, including Ask.com, AdBrite and LookSmart. “With this surge of online ad dollars comes scrutiny, accountability and higher expectations,” said Ken Miller, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anchor Intelligence. “It’s a very different landscape than even a couple of quarters ago.”

Negative Keywords Improve Pay-per-click Performance, Save Money

Implementation of negative keywords to your paid search account is one of the most effective methods to improve its performance. Negative keywords allow you to filter out unwanted traffic and only pay for clicks that have a higher probability of converting. Here’s how it works.

Negative Keyword Example

Let’s say you’re selling high-end designer shoes. Your target audience is consumers looking to spend at least $500 on a pair. When reviewing your paid search keyword reports, you find that keywords similar to “designer shoes” tend to convert much better than keywords like “cheap shoes” or “Payless shoes.” In this example, you’d want to add words “cheap” and “Payless” as negative keywords to your paid search campaigns, so that search engines would not display your ads to people who have search on “cheap” or “Payless". Specifically, here’s how excluding “cheap” and “Payless” would impact your ads, using the following search terms.

• “designer shoes” - your ads would show as usual.
• “cheap designer shoes” – ads would NOT show (due to “cheap” being part of user’s search term).
• “Payless shoes” – ads would NOT show (due to “Payless” being part of user’s search term).

How to Locate Negative Keywords

I suggest the following ideas to locate negative keywords for your pay-per-click campaigns.

• Pull a keyword log from your web analytics provider (i.e. Google Analytics, Yahoo! Analytics) and look beyond the first few pages. Look for instances of keywords that are completely irrelevant to what you do.
• Pull a Search Query report in Google AdWords; ask Yahoo! Search Marketing support team to send you your search query report. (Yes, they have do that.) Again, look for instances of keywords that are irrelevant to what you do.
• Look at keyword tools such as Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery for instances of high traffic keywords similar to what you sell but not applicable to your products (i.e., “shoe donation center” and “donation” would be a good negative keywords for an ecommerce store selling shoes).
• Brainstorm on your own. Think of obvious keywords that do not apply to your products/store (i.e., “free”, “no cost”, “no charge”, “broken”, and so forth).

Based on my experience, a negative keyword strategy, if implemented correctly, improves campaign efficiency by 10 to 20 percent after the first 60 days.

Conclusion

Negative keywords improve efficiency of your paid search campaigns. They improve click-through-rates since your ads are not shown for irrelevant searches. And they save you money because you filter out users (and clicks) that are unlikely to convert on your site anyway.

Jumptap debuts tapMatch pay-per-click ad marketplace

Mobile advertising solutions provider Jumptap announced the launch of tapMatch, a pay-per-click performance mobile ad marketplace enabling brand and performance marketers to bid on keywords and categories to run ad campaigns for inclusion on mobile web pages, above search results and in applications including iPhone. According to Jumptap, tapMatch promises easy entry into the mobile ad segment thanks to an intuitive interface that makes it easier to launch a campaign, upload text and graphic banner campaigns, configure and manage targeting options, track campaign performance and generate reports. Advertisements are priced and served by auction, and advertisers only pay when consumers click through their messages.
Jumptap adds that tapMatch ads run across a set of categories including automotive, careers, finance, fitness, and health, all enhanced by keyword search parameters. Advanced targeting intelligence matches relevant ads to each mobile subscriber, building audience profiles from sources including search queries, context and click-through history. Advertisers also maximize performance by targeting keywords, categories, location, demographics, mobile carrier, publisher and mobile handsets including Blackberry and iPhone. Jumptap now boasts partnerships with 17 mobile operators and myriad content publishers, reaching a mobile subscriber audience in excess of 170 million.

6 Easy Ways to Make Money Online: Pay per click

A staggering $2.1 billion in affiliate marketing fees were paid to blog and website owners in 2008. This finding in a recent study by Jupiter Research confirms what many savvy Internet marketers have known for a while: Affiliate marketing has become one of the top business opportunities online because the startup costs are so low and the income you generate can be mind-blowing.
Affiliate marketing involves having your own site and sending your traffic to someone else's site to buy their products or services. For every sale initiated by a link from your site, you earn a percentage--an affiliate sales commission.
Affiliate marketing can be done on a part-time basis, and many are so successful that they've made it their full-time job. Equally exciting, you can get in the game in just a few hours. But how successful you are is based on the amount of time and effort you devote. Here are six tips to get you started:

1. Create a website or blog :To start as an affiliate marketer, you must have a site on which to place links to the products or services you recommend. There are many inexpensive website services such asHostgatorandGoDaddy. It's also easy to set up a free blog through services such as Google's Blogger blog network. I also useNamecheapfor domains andHostnine(get a reseller account) for hosting.

2. Decide your product/service niche Affiliate marketers help companies and entrepreneurs sell everything from jewelry and cell phones to website services and how-to e-books. Choose an area you're familiar with or one you're enthusiastic about learning. You'll be more likely to do the work and less likely to get bored before the money starts rolling in.

3. Find products and services to promote Many affiliate networks exist to connect merchants with affiliate site publishers who can help sell their goods. Companies such as:
Clickbank,E-junkieandPayDotComlead the pack in connecting the creators of e-books and software with affiliates to help sell their digital download products.
Commission Junctionis popular for those who want to sell more traditional wares ranging from travel services to janitorial franchises.
Google AdSense, which doesn't require your involvement to result in a sale. Your income is realized on a pay-per-click basis, just for leading your traffic to click to a merchant's site. PPC affiliate programs pay a lot less than programs where your referral must result in a sale. Keep in mind that a site peppered with ads and no authority or trust can look and feel like spam, and you won't get good results.
4. Affiliate site content There are two main approaches or business models to choose from when setting up an affiliate marketing site:
Resource Sites These sites are focused on offering lots of how-to articles and posts, and then provide affiliate links or banner ads to click for more details. Frequently adding fresh related content is vital because it gives people a reason to return to your site--and click some of your money-making links.
Review Sites You've tried the products in your niche, now you write them up and rate them to help your site visitors decide what to buy. For each product you review, you provide a link or banner ad that clicks through for sales on your merchant partner's site. Less frequent content updates are necessary--just tweak your site about once a week to let the search engines know your site's still alive, and always try to build links.
5. Affiliate sites must attract lots of targeted traffic to succeed Most people visiting your website or blog won't click your affiliate links. That's why it's crucial to employ a mix of marketing tactics to increase traffic--highly targeted traffic--to your site.There are four main ways to get more site exposure and attract more potential customers:
Paid Advertising This is most effective when your ad copy headline, call-to-action message and graphics come together just right to compel people to click through and buy.
Free Advertising Sites likeCraigslistandUS Free Adsare but two of many popular places that accept links and banner ads for free. These tend to be affiliate marketing sites themselves, earning the owner money whenever you click their ads.
Article Marketing This popular marketing method offers several benefits. You're building credibility as a reliable source in your niche, gaining a higher search engine ranking by increasing the number of links leading to your site, and pulling traffic to your site. Work in an organic manner and don't spam using software engines.Ezinearticlesis a great place to begin.
E-mail Marketing Every visitor to your site is valuable, so capturing their names and e-mail addresses to stay in touch is important. Many people might not buy your affiliate products until the third or fourth time they hear from you. So it's crucial to place an opt-in subscription box on your site for people to start receiving a weekly or monthly newsletter from you. My personal favorite isaweber, but many quality ones exist.
6. Learn the ropes in forums These are online communities of likeminded people who exchange insights and ideas. Join at least one of these free affiliate marketing forums to benefit from advice shared by other newbies, intermediates and gurus alike:
Digital PointHuge, with about 25,000 active members. An excellent place to learn affiliate marketing tips, plus other techniques that impact your success such as link building and SEO.
aBestWebOne of the largest affiliate marketing forums, with nearly 100 sub-forums. Covers the broadest range of affiliate marketing-specific subjects, with heavy participation by numerous go-getter merchants and serious affiliates.
Warrior ForumA killer networking forum for beginners and advanced alike. Set up a profile, start participating, ask questions and promote as well.

To do well, read all you can about the opinions, tool and strategies of both experts and peers. But before you even start, choose a niche about which you're passionate. The more you truly enjoy what you're immersed in, the more likely you are to transform your affiliate marketing and money-making venture into a huge success.

New Website Facilitates Pay-Per-Click Advertising on Twitter

Carter and Company, LLC, an Indianapolis-based marketing and web development firm, announced today the immediate availability of BeTweeted.com, an online advertising service that integrates with the popular social media platform Twitter via their open API. BeTweeted.com allows companies to pay twitter users on a per-click basis for "tweeting" links to their content. Twitter users can search for paid link opportunities by keyword or category, learn about the company, and preview the content before manually tweeting the link to their followers.
"Twitter is one of the fastest growing phenomena in Social Media and companies everywhere need effective ways to leverage its popularity," commented Nick Carter, president of Carter and Company and developer of BeTweeted.com. "One of the considerations as we designed this service was to control spam by excluding any automatic tweet capabilities. Any links that are tweeted are manually triggered by the twitter user."
Twitter is one of the fastest growing phenomena in Social Media and companies everywhere need effective ways to leverage its popularity
One of the considerations as we designed this service was to control spam by excluding any automatic tweet capabilities. Any links that are tweeted are manually triggered by the twitter user.
BeTweeted.com is designed to augment a company's existing social media marketing strategy. All advertisers are required to include a valid Twitter username with each paid link. In addition to driving direct website traffic, tweets are also prepended with "retweet" data to build followers for the advertiser and improve their social media footprint for long-term results.